In the wake of the “favoritism scandal” over the reappointment of Hong Myung-bo as the head coach of the national team after a decade, the Korean Football Association (KFA), which selected Hong, has sought to clarify the process, emphasizing that he was the No. 1 candidate from the beginning of the selection process.
However, fans are not convinced by the KFA’s explanation, and the controversy is expected to continue.
On the 22nd, the KFA published a 4,600-word long article titled ‘Explaining the process of selecting the national team coach’ through the ‘This is what it is’ section of its website. At the same time, the KFA also published a 3,600-word Q&A on the process of selecting a national team coach.
After the KFA announced Hong as the next head coach of the national team on July 7, former Bundesliga defender Park Joo-ho, a member of the National Strength and Reinforcement Committee, who participated in the selection process, made an internal complaint that there were problems in the selection process and that he did not know about the selection of Hong.
Following this, Park Ji-sung, Lee Young-pyo, Lee Dong-guk, Cho Won-hee, and Koo Ja-cheol reacted strongly to the KFA’s legal action against Park Joo-ho, and the criticism of the KFA spread like wildfire, prompting the ruling and opposition parties as well as the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism to conduct an audit of the KFA.
The KFA, which was pushed to the brink of amnesty, explained the process of selecting the coach over the past five months.
Fans are claiming that the KFA’s choice of Hong was pre-scripted, as the organization considered more than 100 candidates, including many foreign coaches, before selecting Hong. After making gestures as if they were going to choose a foreign coach, they could no longer delay the appointment as the World Cup Asian third qualifying round in September approached, so they went to Hong’s home and asked him to take over without a fair interview.
However, the KFA emphasized that there were no problems with the selection process, which began in February, explaining the chronological order of the day.
The biggest criticism the KFA has received is that Hong Myung-bo was given a “free pass” without a proper evaluation process.
“The foreign candidates were scheduled for interviews smoothly, and the two foreign candidates were prioritized and the terms of the contract were agreed upon,” the KFA said, adding, ”However, Lee was not convinced of the validity of the game models or tactical choices described by the candidates and how they would fit into the KFA’s technical philosophy.” This suggests that Lee rated the foreign candidates’ skills as subpar.
He also explained that after interviewing two foreign candidates in Europe, Lee visited the home of Hong, who was in charge of Ulsan HD at the time, upon his return, and secured the contract.
Many people also found it problematic that Lee visited Hong’s home late at night, rather than the KFA or a third party.
“The last time (Lee) met with Hong, he planned to finalize the contract with a priority coach among foreign leaders if the meeting with Hong did not go 카지노사이트 추천 through,” the KFA said, adding, ”Lee met with Hong to talk about how to run the national team, the technical philosophy of Korean football and the linkage of the national team at all levels, and to confirm his cooperation and willingness to implement it. Based on this, Lee offered Hong the head coaching position,” he said, insisting that there was no problem.
The federation also refuted claims of favoritism, saying that the foreign coach provided a lengthy analysis while Hong did not. “One (foreign) coach presented 22 pages of data and 16 match videos, while the other presented 16 pages of data,” the federation said. However, the amount of data is not the basis for determining a coach’s ability and competitiveness,” the KFA said.
The KFA also pointed out that domestic coaches, such as Hong, were not asked to submit separate data like foreign coaches because of their previous coaching activities and experience. The KFA also revealed that despite Hong’s repeated statements that he wanted to be the national team coach, the KFA did not trust him and chose him as the first domestic coach.
The KFA said, “From the first meeting of the Power Enhancement Committee, the members were familiar with the philosophy and experience of domestic coaches, so no such materials were submitted. From the beginning, the first choice among domestic managers was Hong Myung-bo,” the KFA said, adding, ”Hong’s achievements include winning two consecutive K League 1 titles while managing Ulsan HD for four years. The members of the power strengthening committee also shared the opinion that if they were to choose a domestic coach, they should choose Hong,” he explained.
However, the KFA argued that “it would not be best to apply an interview method that uniformly asks and demands the same things from all candidates while selecting a coach to lead a national team,” and attempted to address criticism of the overnight interview at home without providing a convincing logic.
The Canadian soccer federation cited domestic residency and tax issues as the reasons for the breakdown of negotiations with Jesse March, who was in talks to become the national team’s head coach in April and May.
“After a video and face-to-face interview, the coach was highly evaluated for his tactical plan, coaching style, and experience, and was the first choice for the job,” the KFA said. The KFA believed that the coach was technically qualified to be the head coach of the Korean national team, so it was important to confirm the domestic residency requirement.” ”The agent of the coach was favorable to the salary scale and domestic residency requirement at the beginning of the negotiation, but there were delays in the negotiation process due to various inquiries about taxes such as income tax rates and negotiations. The negotiations were virtually stalled after the KFA’s requested deadline, and finally, the other side said, ‘We are withdrawing the proposal due to domestic residency and tax issues,’” the report said.
The reason given by the KFA for Machi’s refusal is the same as that of Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk, who was in talks to take over the national team after the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
