Senior football official booked on obstruction of business charges over nat’l team coach hiring

A senior football official responsible for hiring the men’s national team head coach has been booked on obstruction of business charges, police said Wednesday.

Seoul Jongno Police Station said Lee Lim-saeng, technical director for the Korea Football Association (KFA), is under investigation after a complaint was filed against him last Wednesday.

Police sources said Lee is accused of using his hierarchy and authority to decide on Hong Myung-bo as the new men’s head coach, despite problems with the process.

Lee was thrust into the lead role in the KFA’s coaching search, after Chung Hae-sung abruptly resigned as head of the National Teams Committee, a KFA body in charge of the hiring process, at the end of June.

The investigation into Lee’s work is the newest wrinkle to the KFA controversy that has been raging on since the national governing body named Hong as the new men’s boss on July 7.

Over the previous five months, the KFA had interviewed several foreign candidates, leading fans to believe it would hire someone from outside South Korea. Then in an about-face, the KFA turned to Hong, who had publicly spurned earlier overtures from the national federation.

Amid mounting public criticism that the KFA had disregarded its own vetting process to hire Hong, the sports ministry has launched an audit into the KFA’s operations.

The KFA posted a detailed timeline of its hiring process and a lengthy Q&A item on its website Monday to defend its selection of Hong and reject charges that it had given Hong preferential treatment over foreign-born candidates. This has not quieted detractors, though, as they have identified holes in the KFA’s claims and pointed out that the association has essentially admitted its wrongdoings.

On July 15, a civic group named the People’s Livelihood Countermeasures Committee filed a complaint against KFA President Chung Mong-gyu over charges of obstruction of business, breach of trust and blackmail.