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K-League Match Fixing Scandal
K-League Match-Fixing Scandal
John Duerden
Lie detectors. What's next? The good cop/bad cop routine? K-League CEO Chong Mong-gyu offers the players a cigarette then as soon as they start smoking, General Secretary Ahn Gi-heon knocks it out of their mouths and then stamps on the cigarette on the floor? Chong brings in a bowl of steaming instant noodles but Ahn takes the dish away and starts eating in front of a hungry player? Perhaps Chong will bring an ice-cold can of Maekcol, the cola-flavoured non-alcoholic beer drink that is advertised on the front of Seongnam Ilhwa shirts and Ahn forces the concoction down the player's throat?
Fines, bans and other punishments have been the response to a match-fixing scandal that has gripped Korean soccer for the last few weeks and is not yet showing signs of going away. Almost 50 players, current and former, have been indicted by prosecutors of accepting various amounts of money to manipulate matches in the K-League and League Cup. It is the biggest scandal in the league's 28 year history.
If there is any positive to take out of the sorry saga it is how seriously and quickly the K-League, the Korean Football Association and the police have acted to punish wrong-doers, investigate others and restore public trust in the game. As yet, fans are still relatively sanguine about the whole affair but that could change depending on how long it lasts and who is involved.
A visit to the K-League headquarters in downtown Seoul reveals a frazzled staff working almost around the clock. "Even at the cost of suffering from 'cutting our own flesh,' we must remove anything that degrades the spirit of football," K-League CEO Chung Mong-gyu said as soon as the news broke. "To retain the reputation of the K-League, I will make all possible efforts to eradicate any rigging of games and illegal betting," he added.
By the time, Jeong Jeon Kwan, a former player with Jeonbuk Motors, was found dead in a Seoul hotel room reportedly next to a note apologizing for his actions in the scandal, it was in full flow. "I'm ashamed of myself as a person involved in the match-fixing scandal," said a note near the body, according to media reports. "Those under investigation are all my friends and they haven't blown my name because of friendship. All is my fault and I got them involved."
In June, ten players were charged with match-fixing, along with two brokers working for criminal gangs who run illegal betting sites in China and Korea. Eight came from Daejeon Citizen. Most were not regular starters which was one of the reasons given for their susceptibility. The K-League banned them all for life, promising to review their cases if they are found innocent by the courts.
On an April 6 game in the Korea League Cup, the country's second cup competition, Daejeon rested their entire first team for the midweek match. At the time, the team was doing well in the K-League and some commentators praised the strategy of resting the first team for the important weekend games and giving the fringe players a chance for some playing time in a low-key cup game.
It is no longer low-key. The game ended in a 3-0 win for Pohang in a game that turned out to be rigged. Ten players have been charged by police and face up to five years in prison if found guilty. They were quickly banned for life by the K-League. It didn't stop there.
"It has spread,'' said Lee Kap-jin, the former vice president of the Korean Football Association and the head of the newly formed misconduct committee that is charged with eradicating match-fixing from the Korean game told me last week in an interview conducted for AP . "We didn't expect that it would spread like this but we have to wait and see. If you are a doctor and find cancer, you have to wait and see how far the cancer has spread before you operate. I have no idea how many players will be investigated, that is a matter for the courts, but we know that we can't take it easy because if you do, you lose.''
The investigation soon widened to include 15 games in total in both league and cup. Choi Sung-kuk, a former international and now with Suwon Bluewings, is the highest profile player accused. The second, and the one who is allegedly at the centre of it all approaching players on behalf of the criminal gangs who run illegal betting sites in Korea and China, is former Seongnam striker Kim Dong-hyun. Kim is now at Sangju Sangmu, well he was, the military club that Choi left last season. Sangju has been at the centre of much activity so far but no club can afford to be complacent.
Huh Jung-moo, South Korea's 2010 World Cup coach and now in charge of Incheon United, spoke for many when he said that the present situation is an opportunity to get this sorted once and for all.
"As a football devotee, we're facing a problem that should never have happened," Huh said. "Once everything is exposed, we should scrutinize it to make sure everything will be cleared up in the aftermath, so that we can turn this to our advantage."
Copyright: John Duerden & Soccerphile.com
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