Around 50,000 fans watched Manchester City beat Atlético Madrid 3-1 in a pre-season exhibition game at Seoul World Cup Stadium on Sunday, offering a rare example of soccer making headlines for on-field action here during a scandal-hit summer.
The big transfer news of the period saw South Korea’s star player Lee Kang-in move from Paris Saint-Germain to Atlético Madrid last month in a deal reportedly worth more than $40 million.
Despite Lee’s second-half introduction, he couldn't prevent Manchester City rallying from a goal down to win. Jorge Dominguez put Madrid ahead just before the break but two goals from Omar Marmoush and one from Rayan Ait-Nouri gave the English club the victory, The Associated Press reported.
The match offered a welcome break from the World Cup fallout, which involved police raids and parliamentary hearings. A leaked government audit recently revealed that Korea Football Association (KFA) officials used corporate credit cards in 2011 and 2012 to pay for services at adult entertainment venues for foreign referees.
“We express our sincere apologies for causing concerns over a range of issues, from a parliamentary hearing and an unprecedented police raid to media reports about incidents from more than a decade ago that even members within the federation were unaware of,” the KFA said in a statement Saturday.
Leading soccer pundit Park Moon-sung was unimpressed with the extent of the apology.
“Are match-fixing and sexual services — things so disgraceful that I do not even want to mention them — something that can be brushed aside by saying, ‘Why bring up events from more than a decade ago that we did not know about?’” Park posted on social media.
That was the latest controversy. Anger erupted in June after South Korea’s poor World Cup performance, with the Taeguk Warriors losing two of three games and failing to advance from the group stage in the tournament co-hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada.
The general reaction was so fierce that police revived a stalled investigation into the appointment of head coach Hong Myung-bo in July 2024. Hong’s appointment had prompted accusations that KFA President Chung Mong-gyu and technical director Lee Lim-saeng failed to follow the organization’s own hiring process.
In July, Hong and Chung, who have both stepped down from their KFA roles, were questioned by lawmakers at the National Assembly about their actions.
A government-backed K-Football Innovation Committee has been established to recommend changes to the governance structure of the national soccer federation. The committee is co-chaired by former Manchester United and South Korea star Park Ji-sung and Ryu Seung-min, president of the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee.
The committee has proposed expanding the electorate for the next KFA presidential election from 300 voters to about 20,000, to include players, coaches, referees and amateur football participants.
While South Korea is currently without a head coach and federation chief, the KFA is hoping to hire a temporary coach ahead of the 2027 Asian Cup which kicks off in Saudi Arabia in January.
