The signboard outside the Korea Football Association House in Seoul is seen in this Feb. 25 photo. Yonhap
In only a matter of months, Chung Mong-gyu went from being booed by thousands of disgruntled fans to winning his fourth consecutive term as Korea's top football official.
Chung handily defeated two rival candidates to win the election for president of the Korea Football Association (KFA) on Wednesday, collecting 156 out of 183 votes. Huh Jung-moo, former head coach of the Korean men's national team, finished with 15 votes, and Shin Moon-sun, former player and television analyst, had 11 votes. There was one invalid vote.
By the end of his new four-year term, Chung will have been in charge of Korean football for 16 years. Over the past dozen years, Korean football has experienced some dizzying highs, such as the slashing of European giants Germany and Portugal in World Cup matches, reaching the knockout stage at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and winning back-to-back men's Asian Games gold medals in 2018 and 2013.
However, the latter part of Chung's previous term was marred by controversial issues away from the pitch, leading to growing calls for his resignation months before the election.
Chung, 63, defiantly stood his ground and earned enough support from people in football — the 192-member electoral college included heads of regional football associations, club CEOs, players, coaches and referees — to earn another term.
In March 2023, Chung sought to pardon several former players banned for life over match-fixing charges. The move was met with swift backlash, leading Chung to rescind the decision and a slew of senior KFA executives to resign en masse to take the fall.
Earlier that year, the KFA had brought in Jurgen Klinsmann as new head coach of the men's national team. While Klinsmann had an impeccable playing career as a striker, his coaching resume had been choppy, a blend of some success and ugly departures. Chung was criticized for bypassing the KFA's National Teams Committee, tasked with the national team coaching search, and instead getting himself directly involved in the process.
Klinsmann's tenure lasted barely a year, as he was fired following Korea's loss to Jordan in the semifinals of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup in Feb. 2024.
The search for Klinsmann's replacement dragged on for five months, and the KFA once came close to signing American tactician Jesse Marsch before pivoting to Hong, who had been head coach of the K League 1 club Ulsan HD FC since 2021.
Chung and the KFA were slammed for poaching a club coach in the middle of the domestic league season and for skipping their own vetting process to put Hong in charge. Fans were upset that they had been led to believe the KFA would hire a foreign-born coach with a proven track record, only to give Hong, who couldn't get Korea out of the group stage at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in his first stint, a second chance.
Chung Mong-gyu, a candidate in the election for president of the Korea Football Association (KFA), prepares for his final speech before the vote at the KFA House in Seoul, Feb. 26, in this photo provided by the KFA. Yonhap
Hong made his return on Sept. 5 for a World Cup qualification match against Palestine at Seoul World Cup Stadium. And he was lustily booed by nearly 60,000 fans before, during and after Korea's goalless draw. Many of those fans also chanted, "Chung Mong-gyu, get out!" and held up signs demanding his immediate resignation.
Controversy surrounding the coaching hiring prompted the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to launch a probe into operations at the KFA. When announcing its conclusion in November, the ministry demanded the KFA at least suspend Chung for a large number of rules violations in recent years.
The ministry then dismissed the KFA's appeal in January, and the football body went to court. On Feb. 11, the Seoul Administrative Court granted the KFA's request to halt the implementation of the ministry's demand to discipline Chung before the election.
The ruling allowed Chung to stay in the race. As unpopular as he may have been with the public, Chung apparently had not lost the respect of people working in football — as evidenced by his election victory Wednesday. The 192-member electoral college, with 183 of them voting Wednesday, was made up of heads of regional football associations, CEOs of K League clubs, players, coaches and referees, among others — but not members of the general public. And those voters chose stability over leadership change.
His win ensures that Chung will oversee the completion of the construction of the new national football headquarters in Cheonan, some 85 kilometers south of Seoul in South Chungcheong Province. The football center is expected to be finished by July this year. (Yonhap)