Nat'l football body releases minutes from key meeting on coaching search, rejects charges of unfair hiring
Nat'l football body releases minutes from key meeting on coaching search, rejects charges of unfair hiring
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The national football governing body on Tuesday released minutes from a key meeting that led to the hiring of the new men's national team head coach Hong Myung-bo, responding to Hong's demand for more transparency from the organization while rejecting charges of unfair hiring.
The Korea Football Association (KFA) disclosed minutes from the 10th meeting of its National Teams Committee on June 21. The committee, headed by former coach Chung Hae-sung, was put in charge of the coaching search after Jurgen Klinsmann was sacked in February in light of the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup.
According to the minutes, the committee narrowed down the list of candidates to five. During that meeting, Hong and an unidentified foreign coach tied for first in terms of receiving recommendations from committee members. The minutes also showed committee members agreeing to give Chung the full authority to settle on one final candidate and report the result to the KFA board of directors.
The candidate list was later cut to three, with Hong being the first choice, followed by two unidentified foreign-born tacticians.
Chung Hae-sung informed KFA President Chung Mong-gyu of this decision but then resigned in late June due to health reasons.
Lee Lim-saeng, the technical director at the KFA, took over from Chung Hae-sung and interviewed the final three candidates in person before Hong was appointed on July 7. The KFA's board finalized Hong's hiring the following week, and his hiring became official on July 13.
The KFA has faced criticism for not putting Hong through the same, rigorous vetting process that other candidates were subjected to, with Lee pleading with Hong to take the job in a hastily scheduled meeting 한국을 near Hong's home. However, the KFA insisted Tuesday that it stuck to the proper process all along. It said the National Teams Committee reviewed tapes of Hong's earlier matches in its ninth meeting, and Chung Hae-sung had attended matches for Hong's former K League 1 club, Ulsan HD FC, to analyze the coach's tactics.
How Lee was able to take charge after Chung Hae-sung's departure and whether Lee had garnered enough support from the remaining committee members to run the process remain disputed. Lee was grilled about the process during the questioning session for the parliamentary committee on sports last Tuesday. Overcome with emotion while arguing that he was being treated unfairly, Lee offered to resign on the spot.
On Monday, while announcing the national team squad for two World Cup qualifiers scheduled for October, Hong said some of the things he had heard in lawmakers' pointed questions on his hiring process were different from what the KFA had told him. Hong admitted to feeling frustrated with the lingering controversy and said the KFA should publicly open up minutes from some of the committee meetings in order to be more transparent.
"We can't keep talking about this situation forever, and I think being more transparent about the whole thing is one of the ways to go about it," Hong said then. "I don't know what the KFA will do, but personally, I'd like to know more."
The ministry of culture, sports and tourism is scheduled to announce interim findings of its probe into the KFA on Wednesday.
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