Opposition lawmakers say Paichai baseball team's ban 'excessive'

Opposition politicians criticized a six-month national tournament ban on Paichai High School’s baseball team as excessive on Wednesday, even as they acknowledged that players were wrong to use chants that appeared to mock Gwangju and the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement.

The Korea Baseball Softball Association (KBSA) held an emergency Sports Fairness Committee meeting on Wednesday and suspended the team from national tournaments for six months. The committee cited that the chants violated sportsmanship.

Some Paichai players shouted “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go to Starbucks” and “Tank Day” toward Gwangju Jeil High School’s dugout during a game at the 81st Blue Dragon Flag National High School Baseball Championship on Monday.

Critics said the chants referenced Starbucks Korea’s controversial “Tank Day” promotion, which took place on May 18 and triggered public anger for allegedly mocking the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju that resulted in a number of civilian deaths during protests. 

The suspension bars Paichai High School from playing its second-round game against Suncheon Hyocheon High School, which was initially scheduled for Thursday, and the team’s senior players could face difficulties in college recruitment and admissions because of the ban.

Opposition lawmakers said the conduct was wrong but called the punishment excessive.

“The conduct was inappropriate because it had aspects that disparaged the May 18 Democratization Movement,” Main opposition People Power Party (PPP) floor leader Jeong Jeom-sig wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. “But even if we have a duty to educate and guide them, we do not have the right to trample on children’s dreams.”

Independent Rep. Han Dong-hoon also said the chants were wrong, but cautioned against the excessive punishment. 

“Using the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement as material for jeering at an opposing team was wrong,” Han said. “But giving young students a six-month suspension from competition is excessive.”

“Broadcaster Choi Wook, an adult, only apologized and is still on air after saying on a broadcast that people should be pushed away with tanks, and Starbucks did not have its business suspended either,” he added, referencing a television personality who said in June that people in extreme far-right online communities "should be crushed by tanks." He later apologized for his comment. 

Some opposition figures also used the punishment to attack the ruling bloc.

“President Lee Jae Myung appears to be pushing someone as party leader who commemorated the eve of May 18 at Saecheonnyeon NHK in a spirited way,” Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok said, referring to a 2000 drinking scandal involving Kim Min-seok, the former prime minister now running for Democratic Party (DP) leader, at a Gwangju bar on the eve of a memorial service. “If only the Paichai High School students are treated more harshly than necessary, that, too, is not just.”

PPP Rep. Na Kyung-won also joined the criticism.

“First they took away the freedom to go to Starbucks, and now they are taking away children’s dreams,” Na said.

PPP Rep. Kim Jae-sub even criticized Lee himself for once having misunderstood the May 18 movement.

“Didn’t President Lee Jae Myung himself say that there was a time when he misunderstood May 18 because of wrong information and acknowledged that he had once been a user of Ilbe?” Kim said, recalling a speech President Lee made in 2017 in Gwangju, when he said he was misinformed by false information about the uprising in the past and jokingly called himself a user of the far-right online community Ilbe.

“Why is the chance for mistake and correction allowed to the president not given to Paichai High School players?”

Rep. Lee Kai-ho of the ruling DP took the opposite view.

“It is the grim face of the so-called Ilbe game that has spread like a poisonous mushroom among teenagers,” the DP lawmaker said in a statement that referred to the game by invoking the name of the website where far-right memes are shared. “This is not a simple prank or deviation but violence that damages the foundation of democracy.”

The DP lawmaker also wrote on Facebook on Tuesday that “the baseball team of a school called Paichai High School should be disbanded immediately.”

“It should be treated as school violence and punished severely,” the DP lawmaker wrote. “Now even high school baseball players have turned 'Ilbe,' and because of Chung Yong-jin, I'm increasingly worried about this country."

Chung Yong-jin is the chairman of the retail conglomerate Shinsegae Group, which operates Starbucks in Korea. He has been criticized multiple times for his far-right speech. 

The DP leadership, however, stopped short of using the same hard-line language and instead called on adults and politicians to reflect.

“We have confirmed that distorted perceptions, hatred and mockery have deeply seeped into teenagers,” DP Supreme Council member Kang Deuk-gu said during a Supreme Council meeting Wednesday. “This is the responsibility of adults, older generations and the political sphere.”

“We will work to eliminate the old political culture that fuels hatred for political gain and restore the public sphere,” fellow council member Park Ji-won said.

Correction, July 7, 2026: Corrected the date of the game.

BY LEE CHAN-KYU [[email protected]]