KFA President Election – Primer

Next week, on January 8, 2025, the KFA will hold its election for who will serve as president for the next four years until 2029.

Candidates

There are three candidates running in the election.

Chung Mong-gyu

Chung Mong-gyu is, of course, the current president of the KFA. He is currently serving his third term (which began in 2021) as he was also elected to be KFA president in 2013 and 2017. KFA rules dictate that an individual can only be KFA president twice, unless an exception is granted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism – they granted the exception for Chung to run again. Besides being KFA president, Chung is also the chair of HDC (Hyundai Development Company), a part of the Hyundai chaebol group that focuses on real estate development and construction (HDC as a business entity separated from Hyundai Group in 1999).

Chung is under great pressure due to the team’s poor performance at the recent Asian Cup and the subsequent hiring of current national team manager Hong Myung-bo (see The Tavern’s recent posts here and here). There has been a lot of pressure from fans, and some from the government, for Chung to resign from his position. Obviously, he has not done so. Chung has said that he accepts the criticism from the fans, but that the government simply does not understand how the KFA does things (the protocols). He also said that since he is a businessman, he has traditionally valued “efficiency over communication” and that may be the source for some of the issues within the KFA.

Chung has not said a lot about what he would do differently if elected to a fourth term, but did pledge that this will definitely be his last term if re-elected.

Shin Moon-seon

Shin Moon-seon is a former player and TV analyst. He currently is a professor at Myongji University’s Graduate School of Records, Archives & Information Science. He also served one year as the president of Seongnam FC.

Platform

Honestly, I didn’t have a huge amount of time to research this article thoroughly, so I wasn’t able to find a solid list of Shin’s pledges if he is elected. I heard that he has a lot of them, but all of the articles I see on them are summarized and focus on his criticisms of Chung Mong-gyu. His statement that it is time to end “the chaebol administration of football” has been quoted often.

Shin seems to be focused on massive reforms to the KFA, including renaming it the KFF (Korea Football Federation) and bringing in the elementary, middle, and high school federations, referees federation (to combine with the professional, university, women’s, and futsal) to create one fully integrated federation. He also pledged to reveal what money was paid to former manager Jurgen Klinsmann when he was fired and to generally increase the level of transparency.

Shin also focused a lot of sponsorship and money. Shin criticized the KFA stating that while the profits of the KFA have increased yearly, it is due to government funds and that in reality the KFA is operating at an annual deficit of 30 billion won or $20.4 million USD (using the current exchange rate of $1 USD = 1,470 KRW). Shin has said that he will work with the Japanese Football Association to benchmark their overseas sponsorships and to examine how the German Football Association also was able to revamp their sponsorships.

Heo Jung-moo

Heo Jung-moo is most well-known (by most I imagine) as being the national team manager from 2008-2010, including the team’s Round of 16 performance at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Heo also had shorter stints with the NT in the 90’s and served as manager for Pohang, Jeonnam, and Incheon in the K League. Heo has also served as a vice chair with the KFA and as president for Daejeon more recently. As a player, Heo played for PSV and Ulsan in the 80’s.

Heo is slightly interesting because of some whispers in the media. Some say that he entered the race thinking that Chung Mong-gyu would not run, but then when Chung did announce he was running, Heo decided to stay in because he had already invested significant time and effort into developing a vision and platform. There are also whispers that Heo is an ‘establishment’ pick and was nudged into entering as a soft of alternative to Chung Mong-gyu by those in the KFA. True? Not sure, but it does make some logical sense.

Platform

Heo Jung-moo has stated five main goals (each with several sub-components) if elected as KFA president:

1. Transparency: The establishment of a system for developing and appointing leaders
2. Fairness: A system where the KFA is run in a transparent and fair manner
3. Development: Advance the development of youth players as well as the competitiveness of women’s football
4. Balance: Guarantee the autonomy and creativeness of local associations
5. Partnership: Open KFA, With All

Due to the large number of sub-components of each main goal, I won’t detail every one, but will try to summarize them.

Transparency broadly deals with internal processes within the KFA in terms of appointing managers and selection to the various committees within the KFA as well as long-term programs for developing leaders. It also mentions the creation of a Referees’ Association and improving the national team’s FIFA ranking to be top 10 in the world and #1 in Asia.

Fairness seems related to Transparency. Again, it looks at creating internal processes for the appointment of positions in the KFA as well as the creation of systems to deal with the review of regulations and the protection of players.

Development focuses on player development initiatives. It mentions creating programs that track player progress over the long-term to help ensure that players move smoothly between different age levels to create strong ‘generations’ of players. It also mentions the establishment of an overseas base for players overseas (a journalist on YouTube said possibly in southern France or Spain). Finally, it mentions building the women’s program by adding additional competitions across different cities, expanding the budget for the WK-League, creating more university women’s teams, and removing the salary limit for female players.

Balance seems to seek to improve the grassroots level as it focuses on support for regional football associations. It mentions the establishment of 1 ‘independent’ club per regional association. It also makes a statement about strengthening Korea’s “football diplomacy” through the hosting of international competitions.

Partnership is about working to grow the fanbase and connect with new fans. It mentions improving communication with female fans and MZ fans (Generation Z) as well as building out social media and short-form content.

Election process and controversies

The election will be held on January 8. There is a 173-member electoral college that will vote for the next president. The college is composed of current and former players, coaches, and others associated with the sport. Voting is only allowed in-person and on the day of the election.

Electoral college disqualifications

Candidate Heo Jung-moo has pointed out a few controversial points regarding the upcoming election. One is that the electoral college was originally 194-members, but 21 individuals were disqualified from voting after they failed to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Heo alleged that the motives for this were political, inferring that they perhaps were not willing to vote a certain way. Heo alleged that the KFA intentionally waited until the last minute to request signatories to the nondisclosure agreement rather than disclosing the requirement when members were drawn to be a part of the electoral college.

Early and electronic voting

Heo has also filed a motion against the KFA in court to postpone the election due to the KFA’s unwillingness to allow for early or electronic voting. Both Heo and Lee Keun-ho, the chair of the Players Association, had requested to the KFA to allow early and/or electronic voting to allow active players and coaches to vote more easily given many will report to winter training camps before the election is scheduled to be held. The KFA denied this request citing security and privacy concerns. The court is expected to rule on this motion on Monday, January 6.

Election management committee

The final ‘controversy’ that Heo has raised involves the KFA’s Election Management Committee. This committee, which oversees all of the processes involved in the election, was announced back on December 12. It is an eight-member committee that is formed by the KFA and whose rules stipulate that at least 2/3 of the members must be from outside the Korea Sports Council and other sports associations (as well as not being KFA employees or KFA affiliated organizations).

While the KFA did announce the professions of these members (4 lawyers, 3 professors, 1 journalist), they have not specifically identified who they are. This is the issue that Heo has raised. He has alleged that without a way to verify who these individuals are, they may not exist or not doing their job at all.

Who will win?

Who knows? While there is considerable anger and displeasure with Chung Mong-gyu, there also seems to be an underlying sense of defeat that he will prevail again despite all of that. Neither Shin Moon-seon nor Heo Jung-moo are incredibly compelling candidates. Heo has history with the current KFA administration and wasn’t an amazing president at Daejeon. Shin Moon-seon, I can’t say a lot about him, but online, Seongnam fans say his year running the club was poor and he wasn’t particularly good with the business aspects, so his promises to turn the KFA into a “money-making machine” fall flat.

And really, that is probably at the core of it. Chung comes with all of that Hyundai money and connections that keeps the KFA afloat (other than continually hauling Son Heung-min, Lee Kang-in, etc. back from Europe for every match and playing them until their legs fall off). Without it, the KFA likely loses a lot of financial ability to run some of the programs (they are supposedly doing) to help build at the grassroots level as well as pay out what they are currently paying to the national teams.

While there is real anger and frustration within and outside of the football community, there is reason to wonder whether those voting will be willing to deal with the short-term pain that will come with voting to massively reform the KFA. Of course, it is no guarantee that Shin or Heo are capable of truly reforming the KFA as they’ve promised. Tie that to the financial issues that may arise from ‘cutting’ ties with Hyundai, and some may just take Chung at his word that he will not run again and push the issue down the road.

We shall see on January 8.

References

• 대한국구협회 선거운영위 구성, 선거 업무 착수 – KFA
• “월드컵 8강+FIFA랭킹 10위 목표”…허정무 후보, ‘투명-공정-육성-균형-동행’ 세부 공약 발표 – OSEN, 신문로, 고성화 via 조선비즈
• 신문선 축구협회장 후보, 혁신과 수익성 강화 공약 발표 – 알파경제, 이고은
• ‘축구협회장 도전’ 신문선 “협회명-조직-예산 개혁하겠다” – 한겨래, 남지은
• 신문선 후보 “축구협회 부정적 이미지 바꾸고 마케팅 강화할 것” – 연합뉴스, 최송아
• Incumbent KFA boss Chung Mong-gyu open to public debate with rivals ahead of election – Yonhap News, Yoo Jee-ho
• KFA chief Chung Mong-gyu formally launches bid for 4th term – Yonhap News via Korea Times
• Candidate questions transparency in KFA president election – Yonhap News via Korea Times
• KFA requests early voting for president of KFA election – YTN
• Chung Mong-gyu announces bid for fourth term as KFA president – Donga News, Kim Jeong-hun