The government says KFA broke the rules when they hired coaches from South Korea

The sports ministry said on Wednesday that the Korea Football Association (KFA) broke its own rules when it hired Juergen Klinsmann as ex-coach and Hong Myung-bo as head coach of the national team.

South Korea hired Hong again to lead the team for a second time in July. This ended a five-month search for a new coach after Klinsmann was fired in February.

Hong was in charge of two World Cup qualifiers in September. One of them was a 0-0 draw with Palestine, during which fans booed him to show they didn’t like his job.

After Hong’s hire caused a stir, Korea’s sports ministry started looking into how the KFA worked, even though the KFA said it never broke any rules.

Last week, Hong said that the KFA did not hire him because they liked him more than other candidates. He also said that he took the job after meeting Lee Lim-saeng, the KFA’s technical head.

It was not a proper interview when Hong met with Lee, and Lee did not have the power to suggest a coach, the sports ministry said on Wednesday, releasing the first results of its investigation.

“(Lee) was involved in the process just because the KFA chairman and vice chairman, neither of whom have the authority to appoint the coach, delegated authority and ordered him to take follow-up steps,” Choi Hyun-joon said to reporters.

“When Lee and Hong met in person on July 5, the process was different from that of other foreign coach candidates.

“It is difficult to see it as a reasonable interview process, as there was no pre-interview questionnaire or an observer, but Lee had waited alone for a long time to conduct the interview late at night near his home, during which he asked Hong to take the coach position.”

A request for feedback from the KFA was not answered right away.

South Korean news outlets said that David Wagner, who used to manage Norwich City, Jesse Marsch, who coaches Canada, and Gus Poyet, who used to coach Greece, were some of the other possibilities.

The sports minister found things, but it didn’t tell the KFA to get rid of Hong’s contract.

“We expect the KFA to review the situation and make its own decision from the perspective of public opinion and common sense,” Choi said.

“Our audit did not find any proof that unfair methods were used to choose Hong as coach.”

“But I think that since the issue of appointing the national team coach is a big issue that the entire nation is interested in, the procedure and process should comply with the rules, be fair and meet public expectations as much as possible.”

The end of October is when the final results of the investigation are due.

The ministry also said that the KFA broke the rules when it hired Klinsmann, Hong’s predecessor, in 2023 and that it had not let the National Team Committee work properly. This is an advisory group that chooses coaches for the national team.

“The members of the committee had been excluded from the process from the beginning and were not able to participate in the candidate interview process,” Choi told us.