Renowned Korean manager Kim Hak-bum to lead Jeju next

Former Olympic football team manager Kim Hak-bum will helm K League 1 side Jeju United next season, the club announced Tuesday.  

Kim is an experienced manager who led multiple K League teams such as Seongnam FC, Gangwon FC and Gwangju FC in the 2000s and 2010s. 

He saw some success with Seongnam, winning the K League 1 in 2006, before taking charge of the club again in 2014 and winning the Korean FA Cup that year.  

Kim then took the helm of the U-23 national team in 2018 and won a gold medal with the Asian Games squad that year, granting the team military exemption that could otherwise interfere with the players’ careers.  

Tottenham Hotspur’s Son Heung-min and Bayern Munich’s Kim Min-jae were two of the members that earned exemption in 2018.  

Kim Hak-bum continued his career as U-23 national team manager after the Asiad, although he failed to secure another medal with the Olympic team in 2021. The U-23 side lost to Mexico in the quarterfinals in Tokyo.

Since his contract with the U-23 team expired in 2021, he has not taken a managerial role at any team.  

Jeju’s call to sign Kim comes as the club barely managed to finish outside the relegation zone in the K League 1 this season.  

The club struggled overall during the season, despite climbing up to fifth at one point, finishing in ninth place on the 12-team table to avoid promotion-relegation playoffs.  

The last-place K League 1 team faces direct relegation to the K League 2, while the K League 1’s 10th and 11th place clubs play promotion-relegation playoffs against K League 2 clubs to decide which teams face relegation or earn promotion.  

Jeju’s struggle in the second half of the season even prompted then-manager Nam Ki-il to resign in September. Interim manager Jung Jo-gook led Jeju for the remainder of the season.  

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [[email protected]]