The K League 1 championship trophy / Courtesy of the Korea Professional Football League

The top Korean football league will have a new foreign player quota for the 2025 season, with nationality restrictions no longer in place.

The Korea Professional Football League (K League) announced a series of changes for the upcoming season on Tuesday. In the K League 1, clubs can now sign up to six foreign players, regardless of their nationalities, and can play a maximum four of those players in the same match.

Previously, K League 1 clubs could have five foreign players and one player from a member country of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

Until 2022, K league 1 teams had each been allowed three foreign players, one player from an AFC country, and another player from a Southeast Asian country.

The K League will also follow the rules guiding concussion substitutes approved by the International Football Association Board in March 2024. Under this change, teams can replace a player with a suspected concussion without having it count toward their substitutions for the match.

Among other changes, the league office may switch venues if pitch conditions at a stadium are considered unplayable. In such instances, the home team may be asked to play at the stadium of their opponent for that match or to seek a neutral venue.

The second-tier K League 2 will welcome a new member in Hwaseong FC. There will be 14 teams in the K League 2, where they will each play 39 matches. (Yonhap)