Most soccer fans in Korea who are asked about how they feel about the current situation of the Korean national soccer team would not show gratitude. As a devoted fan of the sport, I am certainly one of those people.
Over the past few years, the South Korean soccer team has not shown improvement and has been losing many games, although many fans refer to the current period of Korean soccer as the “Golden Age”, filled with renowned players such as Son Heung-Min and Kim Min-Jae. Most of these fans put the blame on the KFA (Korean Football Association), the governing body for Korean soccer. This is the association that manages professional leagues, national teams and development programs.
So, why are Koreans blaming the KFA for the decreasing success of the national team? They say Chung Mong-gyu, the president of the KFA who leads all the major decisions within the association, is the reason. He was the man behind the unexpected appointments of head coach Jurgen Klinsmann after the Qatar World Cup –– the supposed start of the downfall –– and Hong Myung-bo a couple months ago. He is also the man that has appointed himself as president of the KFA for 11 years and has refused to step down from his role….
In the viewpoint of the fans, there was no major issue with changing the head coaches. However, it was the process for Chung to pick the new head coach and the choices he ultimately made that angered the fans. After a successful World Cup 2022 run, making it to the round of 16 with head coach Paulo Bento, Chung decided to hire Klinsmann, which was widely viewed as a sole decision by Chung himself, without the opinions of other head members of the KFA. Just a year later, Klinsman was sacked from his head coach position due to poor results from the South Korea team such as failing to win many friendly matches with other countries and not making the Asian Cup final in early 2024.
Already receiving backlash from Korean citizens, Chung asserted that he would go through a long process to decide the next head coach. He also stated that many meetings were appointed with foreign coaches, like Bento and Klinsmann. However, as the deciding process got longer, a familiar name to the Korean soccer fanbase –– Hong Myung-bo –– became the head coach.
The Koreans were already frustrated from the lack of leadership of President Chung. The appointment of Hong infuriated them even more. To many Koreans, not only was he not a ‘top class’ coach from a foreign country, but he also faced numerous issues as head coach before. In the 2014 World Cup, he was the head coach that attempted to lead the South Korean team, yet could not win a single game and made the team get eliminated in the group stage. The Korean fans remembered this experience and protested the signing of coach Hong from the moment he got hired.
Usually in national sports teams of South Korea it is not common for someone to hold the position of president of a sports organization for so long; especially one that receives lots of hate by citizens. However, Chung has been president for 11 years since 2013, and expects himself to stay as president for more time. Many Koreans speculate that his motives will once again show his selfishness and his tendency to act solely based on his own wills, wanting to receive more profits from his position.
Chung has not yet apologized for his actions and does not even seem to recognize what the problem is. Let’s face the important question: Is Chung the only problem in the decline of Korean soccer? No, there are many to blame. In truth, I believe that the fans play a huge role in this issue. Of course not all fans, but those who go and watch the national games not to support the players, but to show their negative emotions about the current state of soccer in Korea. The booing, chatters, and backlash over social media does not mitigate the issue, and only makes it worse.
I wonder what their thought process is around this, when they pay loads of their money for their tickets, which end up going to president Chung, encouraging him to remain as the President even more. Not only do they help out Chung to maintain his power, but they show hatred to players, cursing out players of their own nation after disappointing games that even players have to get involved in.
If citizens were to protest the KFA, they should stay home and encourage their own players who are going through tougher times. As a fan who watches all of Korea’s international soccer games, I hope the future of Korean soccer becomes brighter and enables Koreans to have pride in the team. But for that to happen, there must be actions taken immediately.
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