As the Korean Football Association weighs its options for a full-time coach before the March A-Match, the field has been narrowed down to domestic coaches. It looks like the KFA is trying to save itself from an immediate crisis.
On the 21st, the new head of the National Strength Committee, Chung Jung-sung, briefed the first meeting. He explained the reasons for the selection of the commissioner, the criteria for selecting a coach, and mentioned that the selection was centered on hiring a full-time coach.
During the Q&A, Jeong said that he would select both Korean and foreign coaches, but when questions continued, he said, “We left the option open for foreign coaches, but we discussed whether we should give more weight to domestic coaches.” He added, “When a foreign coach is appointed, it takes a lot of time to get to know the national players. In the case of a domestic coach, there shouldn’t be a big problem if he or she is in office,” 카지노사이트 as if they had already narrowed down the candidates to domestic coaches.
Time is running out for a K League coach. The K League is less than two weeks away from the start of the season. All the coaches have already put their colors on their teams during the winter training camp. If a current K League coach were to be called to manage the national team at this point, it would have a devastating effect on the team”s performance and players.
There was no concrete solution to this. Chung said, “We are in a tight timeframe to appoint a national team coach. If you are working for a club team, you will have to go directly to the club and ask for help,” Chung said, adding that he would try to reach out to them. He also mentioned a specific time frame of “media day,” so it’s possible that a current K League coach could take the reins of the national team.
K League fans are reacting. In an official statement, the Ulsan HD supporters of Hong Myung-bo, who has already been in trouble once with the national team, strongly condemned the appointment of all active K League managers, including Hong, saying, “The association does not feel any responsibility for the recent events in Korean soccer and is trying to evade responsibility by using K League managers as a shield.”
Ulsan supporters then staged a truck protest in front of the Football Center on the morning of the 23rd, demanding that all attempts to appoint Hong and other K League managers be scrapped.
This is in line with a statement from the Korean national team supporters’ organization Red Devils, which was released shortly before the KFA briefing. “The K League is the lifeblood and backbone of Korean soccer,” the Red Devils said on Nov. 21, “and we have doubts about whether the K League has any respect and consideration for the coaches being considered by the Power Enhancement Committee,” emphasizing that cases like Choi Kang-hee’s sudden appointment in 2011 should not be repeated.
Nevertheless, the KFA is expected to make a formal appointment in time for the second round of qualifying for the 2026 North and Central American World Cup in March during the A-Match. Given that the March A-Match starts on March 18, and the national team will be named a week before then, the search committee will have just over a month to make a decision. That’s too little time for a national coach, let alone a foreign one.
The Empowerment Committee was formed on the 20th, and the outline of the selection process was discussed on the 21st. The eight criteria for selecting a director that came out of the briefing are so vague that any director could have been put in place. It’s safe to say that no specific selection process has emerged yet.
Furthermore, all future meetings will be private. There will be no briefings, no press releases, and no media activity. Reporting on the progress of each meeting after the final outcome is known would be tantamount to an after-the-fact visit. This is hard to believe from an organization that just went through a measles scare with the appointment of Jürgen Klinsmann in an opaque process.
If the organization wants to have a full-time coach in place before the March A-match, it has no choice but to streamline the selection process like baking beans over a fire. This is the opposite of having an established and rigorous selection process. Even worse, the process is not public. This is in conflict with the transparent selection process.
If the result is the appointment of an active K League coach, the federation will face even more backlash. Ignoring the problems with the national team and withdrawing resources from the domestic league to deal with the immediate crisis will undermine the competitiveness of the K League in the long run. That aside, no one will welcome a decision that is a result of a dysfunctional selection process.
The KFA has already been criticized for its hasty decision to appoint a head coach before the March A-Match. With so much work to be done, bringing in a K League incumbent for a quick national team head coach without properly reflecting on the process would be a self-fulfilling prophecy that could spark a backlash against the FA.