Lee apologizes for 'preposterous' World Cup results, requests restructuring of KFA

President Lee Jae Myung on Sunday called the national football team's elimination at this year's FIFA World Cup a "preposterous" result and requested nationwide reforms involving sports administration.

"I am sorry to the people for letting them down with such a preposterous turn of events [at the World Cup]," Lee wrote on X.

"I feel that missing the [Round of 32] at this World Cup […] was due to the organization's failures," he continued, referring to the Korea Football Association (KFA).

The president also criticized the KFA's leadership for hiring Hong Myung-bo as the national team's head coach.

"When you put an incompetent person in charge by prioritizing any personal connections over their abilities, then it's easy to predict how things will play out," Lee wrote. "Such a nonsensical personnel decision that puts personal interests ahead of the common good only happens because it's impossible, or at least difficult, to keep the person responsible for these decisions in check."

He then asked the government to reform sports administration nationwide.

"Since participating in a World Cup requires a lot of taxpayers' money and other national resources, I would like to ask the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to identify and analyze the cause of the problem and prepare measures to prevent recurrences."

Korea, with three points from a win and two losses, finished third in Group A and ended up 10th among 12 third-place teams, with the top eight from the latter group qualifying for the knockout stage.

The KFA and its outgoing leader, Chung Mong-gyu, have faced significant public backlash since hiring Hong in July 2024 for his second tour of duty with the national team.

The National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee summoned Hong, Chung and other KFA senior executives as witnesses in September of that year, with lawmakers grilling them for what they believed was an unfair and opaque process to hiring Hong.

Politicians from both the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) also called for a parliamentary probe into operations at the KFA.

"Out of patriotism, I was hoping that the team would reach the Round of 32," DP Rep. Park Beom-kye wrote on Facebook. "This [World Cup] shows that what Korean football needs is not merely remodeling but reconstruction."

"The KFA is the biggest enemy of Korean football," another DP lawmaker, Song Young-gil, wrote on Facebook. "This outcome has been in the making since the 2014 World Cup [when Hong was also the head coach]. [Hong's] hiring process wasn't fair in the first place. What Korean football needs the most right now isn't just bringing in a new head coach but reforming the KFA. Major changes must be made to bring Korean football back to the fans."

PPP Rep. Kim Seung-su argued that the KFA has to take responsibility for the national team's World Cup performance this year.

"In 2024, I pointed out problems with the process that led to the hiring of [Hong] as the national team head coach and demanded responsible steps and reform by the KFA," Kim wrote in a Facebook post.

"But the KFA ignored people's concerns, and it is now facing a highly criticized outcome. If I served on the sports committee, I would conduct a thorough review of the KFA's operations and hold [the organization] accountable to ensure that sports administration can become trustworthy and that Korean football can bounce back."

BY SEO JI-EUN, YONHAP   [[email protected]]