South Korea’s football association has apologised for “various controversies” including a scandal surrounding alleged payments made for sexual favours for foreign referees.<\/p>\n
A report by the nation’s ministry of culture, sport and tourism regarding the allegations was compiled in 2016 and made public last week after it was obtained by South Korean media organisation JTBC.<\/p>\n
According to JTBC’s investigation, the ministry found payments totalling 5.6m won (\u00a32,927) were made using Korea Football Association (KFA) credit cards for “sexual entertainment” at massage parlours for foreign referees visiting the country to officiate matches in the early 2010s.<\/p>\n
They include referees who took charge of qualifying matches for the 2014 World Cup and 2012 Olympic Games in London in which the South Korea national team were participating.<\/p>\n
South Korea qualified for both tournaments.<\/p>\n
The report concluded that KFA staff reported the expenses under false pretences, claiming the money was used for food and drink or massages.<\/p>\n
JTBC said an official at the KFA said “it was common practice back in those days”.<\/p>\n
In a statement posted to social media, the KFA said: “We offer our deepest apologies for the disappointment and concern caused by the various controversies.”<\/p>\n
It listed a variety of reasons for the apology, including the team’s poor performance at the 2026 World Cup, but also referenced “media reports regarding events from over a decade ago that even many of our own staff members were unaware of”.<\/p>\n
The statement added: “However, we wish to clearly state that such inappropriate conduct or misuse of corporate cards is absolutely not occurring at the association at present.<\/p>\n
“Our association, which ought to bring joy and exhilaration to football fans through the fierce pursuit of goals and the fair sportsmanship that emerges in the process, has recently lost sight of its fundamental purpose and finds itself in a truly dire situation.”<\/p>\n
Manager Hong Myung-bo and KFA president Chung Mong-gyu both resigned from their posts earlier this summer following ferocious public anger over South Korea’s performance at the World Cup, in which they did not make it out of a group featuring Mexico, the Czech Republic and South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Korea’s football association has apologised for “various controversies” including a scandal surrounding alleged payments made for sexual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-591068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}