“President Heo Gu-yeon took office in baseball and achieved good results. Is he the head of the company? I’m as confident as he is and I’ll make it by running on my feet.”
Chung Mong-gyu (62), president of the Korea Football Association who was always elected as the sole candidate in the second and third term after the inauguration of the Korea Football Association in 2013, has come forward to prevent him from being elected to the fourth term.
The main character is Heo Jung-moo (69), former coach of the Korean national team. Heo Jung-moo, who cited the example of President Hu Jie-yeon of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) on how to raise funds as a soccer player rather than a businessman, will become the first candidate in eight years for the presidential election of the Korea Football Association, which is drawing more attention than ever before, under the pretext of preventing the self-righteousness of Chung Mong-gyu, the chairman of the Korea Football Association who once worked with him.
Huh Jung-moo officially announced his candidacy for the presidential election of the Korea Football Association at the Olympic Parktel in Jamsil, Seoul on the 25th.
Heo Jung-moo is a legend of Korean soccer in name and reality. He is a rare player, coach, and administrator who have experienced success. As a player, he joined the Century Club with more than 100 A-matches with 30 goals in 104 matches and even played for PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands in the 1980s when it was difficult to play overseas due to his outstanding skills.
He served as the A team coach twice, unprecedented as a coach, and made it to the round of 16 in the 2010 South African World Cup for the first time in Korean soccer history.
As an administrator, he is considered to have made a completely different Daejeon football from the re-foundation of the Daejeon Hana Citizen to the chairman of the board last year after serving as the vice president of the Professional Football Federation.
Since he has worked in the soccer community for a long time, of course, there were some mistakes and controversies. However, compared to the current chairman of the Korea Football Association, Chung Mong-kyu, who is criticized by the nation, he is a “nobleman” and “blood of new feet.”
When Chung took office as president of the Korea Football Association for the first time in 2013, he beat Heo Seung-pyo to become the president of the association after fierce competition that led to an unprecedented second round of voting. However, when he ran for the second and third terms in 2016 and 2021, he was elected only as a sole candidate without any competitors.
Of course, Chung has never announced that he will run for the fourth term. To do so, he needs to get approval from the Sports Fair Trade Commission, which is expected to have no problem. The soccer community predicts that Chung will run for the fourth term.
In the end, if Chairman Chung is elected to the fourth term, he will have a “competition” that he has never experienced in the second and third terms.
Of course, Chung has an advantage in that he has appealed more to the heads of provincial and provincial football associations, which have already won three terms and are eligible to vote. Moreover, the Korea Football Association, which has to do a big job of completing the Cheonan Football Center right away as the chaebol owner, can be seen as a more necessary figure as it needs to raise funds than ever.
After all, the key is how Huh will raise the financial resources that Chung will have to fill if Chung is excluded. Of course, questions were raised at the press conference.
“Until now, heads of large corporations have been supporting and donating to some extent while serving as the president of the Korea Football Association. However, I have never offered a large-scale fund. As a soccer player, I contributed to the establishment of the Yongin Football Center in 2001. Without the government’s assistance, the Yongin City District Government spent 31 billion won to create the center. At that time, I visited the National Assembly, briefed the city government, persuaded city council members, and created the Yongin Football Center. It was the same for Paju. I will play with my feet. If I can get help, I will go to Cheonan City, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and related companies to get help. If you spread it like this and don’t do anything, you will be in debt. We need to minimize it.”
It is not specific. Rather, it might have been clear that there was a specific sponsor. However, emphasizing that he already played a role in building soccer centers in Yongin and Paju, the government plans to resolve the issue by “running on his feet.”
He took the example of KBO president Hu Jie-yeon. After serving as a baseball player, manager, and commentator, Hu Jie-yeon took office as KBO president in March 2022. He became the first baseball player in the KBO, where chaebol chairmen or politicians served.
Although there was a lot of concern at first, the KBO League actively adopted bold systems such as automatic pitching determination system (ABS), expanded base size, limited defensive shifts, and pitch clock, and this year recorded a historic box office hit of 10 million spectators for the first time ever.
Candidate Heo said, “I will take baseball as an example. Baseball was difficult, but President Hu Jie-yeon took office and got good results. He is not the head of the company. I am as confident as I am as the head of baseball, and I am confident that I will make it by running on my feet.”
Of course, the argument that “I will do well as a soccer player because a baseball player did well” may be weak. However, it is true that there is a model for success. The problem is that the Korea Football Association is such a huge organization that it has to spend 187.6 billion won (approx. Chairman Chung Mong-gyu’s Hyundai definitely plays a role in this regard. There are Ulsan HD, Jeonbuk Hyundai, and Incheon Hyundai Steel in the women’s soccer field, and it is impossible to predict what actions Hyundai will take after the retirement. 먹튀검증
In the end, the ability to raise funds and manage the funds will be the biggest factor in becoming the president of the Korea Football Association. Even a legend of Korean soccer cannot laugh at the election for the president of the Korea Football Association on January 8 next year unless he proves it within a month.
Who will the votes for current chairman Chung Mong-gyu, who is competing for the first time since the first election, and Huh Jung-moo, who is challenging it.