A football hearing driven by anger is best avoided
Public anger over Korea’s World Cup exit has fueled calls for accountability, but a parliamentary hearing risks politics and spectacle more than meaningful reform.
Hong Myung-bo, far right, who resigned as the manager of Korea’s national football team following its failure to advance to the Round of 32 at the FIFA World Cup 2026, arrives at Incheon International Airport with players and team officials on June 30.KIM KYUNG-ROK
Shin June-bong
The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo.
The FIFA World Cup 2026, which captivated fans for more than a month, ended on Sunday. The late semiotician Umberto Eco once likened football to the gladiatorial contests of ancient Rome, a comparison he explored in “Umberto Eco and Football” (1997). Given the scale and spectacle of today’s stadiums, the analogy remains apt.
Scottish sociologist Richard Giulianotti argues in “Football: A Sociology of the Global Game” (1999) that team sports arouse stronger emotions than individual Olympic events because they pit communities and nations against one another. Football intensifies those feelings through overlapping rivalries — between players on the field, clubs rooted in competing cities and countries divided by history and nationalism.
Seen in that light, the anger that erupts in countries returning home with disappointing World Cup results is understandable. The tournament has long been a graveyard for coaches. This year, 13 managers — 27 percent of the 48 teams that reached the finals — left their posts because of poor performances or expiring contracts.
Uruguay, which ranks above Korea in the FIFA standings but failed to advance from the group stage, provides an example of the passions involved. Rather than shielding players from criticism, the national federation reportedly canceled the team’s charter flight home. Football is not merely a sport. For many countries, it is inseparable from national pride.
Even so, the fury directed at former Korea manager Hong Myung-bo and the Korea Football Association (KFA) has gone too far. AI-generated videos depicting players assaulting the coach over tactical disagreements are unsettling. Death threats have also emerged. Poor results are not a crime.
More bewildering was the intervention of politicians. After Korea’s victory over the Czech Republic, President Lee Jae Myung praised the players and coaching staff in a post on X. Once the team’s elimination was confirmed, however, he declared that “the result is obvious when incompetent people are chosen as commanders.”
A hands-on leadership style may have its merits, but it is difficult to recall another national leader publicly criticizing a football coach in such terms simply because the team failed. Ironically, while Korean politics became entangled with the World Cup, U.S. President Donald Trump pressured FIFA to allow an American player to delay a red card suspension.
The backlash has forced the KFA into an unprecedented reform drive. Former national team captain Park Ji-sung has accepted the role of chairman of an innovation committee that plans to expand the electoral college selecting the federation president, making it harder for future leaders to remain in power for extended periods as Chung Mong-gyu did.
The Democratic Party is also determined to hold a parliamentary hearing on the football association. The session, originally scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed to July 30 after the opposition showed little enthusiasm and several prominent figures, including Son Heung-min, indicated that they would not attend.
Few fields value results as highly as sports. A dramatic victory is celebrated as evidence of tactical brilliance, while a poor defeat turns coaches and administrators into villains. Many supporters believed Korean football had stagnated, and successive controversies over the appointments of Jürgen Klinsmann and Hong raised legitimate questions about fairness and accountability.
Yet even critics acknowledge that Chung’s contributions were not insignificant. A strong domestic league is essential to the national team’s success, but none of the 29 clubs in the top two divisions of the K League operates at a profit. Seventeen depend heavily on municipal funding.
The contrast with Japan is stark. Last year, 15 of the 20 clubs in the J1 League posted profits. For that reason, some argue that the broader Hyundai family, which has supported three professional clubs including Busan IPark under Chung’s leadership, deserves credit for sustaining Korean football.
Fairness may be one of the defining values of contemporary society, but applying it as an absolute standard to the appointment of a national team coach is problematic. One issue raised during the 2024 parliamentary audit of Hong’s appointment was the involvement of Lee Lim-saeng, then the KFA’s technical director, who allegedly lacked the authority required under internal rules.
People within football, however, often describe hiring a manager as a form of scouting rather than a bureaucratic procedure. According to Lee Jong-sung, a professor in the Division of Sports Industry and Science at Hanyang University, football association presidents in countries such as Italy and France frequently exert strong influence over appointments. The assumption is that selecting a head coach through an impeccably transparent process does not automatically strengthen the national team.
Another parliamentary hearing is unlikely to reveal major wrongdoing that has not already been exposed. A hearing that appears to ride a wave of public anger would do little to improve Korean football. The wiser choice may be not to hold it at all.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
