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Korean soccer coach Hong Myung-bo resigns

Posted July. 11, 2014 06:34,   

한국어

After Korean soccer coach Hong Myung-bo announced his resignation on Thursday, the issue attracting the most attention on the Korea Football Association’s (KFA) is the selection of a new coach. What is urgent right now is preparations for the Asian Cup to be held in January 2015. The new coach will be nominated by the KFA’s Technical Committee and decided by the executive committee. Due to this, it is necessary to re-organize the technical committee first in order to name a new coach.

Korea Football Association Chairman Chung Mong-gyu has apologized to the public on Thursday and vowed to re-organize the technical committee. As such it appears that most of the eight members of the committee including its leader Hwangbo Gwan will be replaced. According to the KFA, Hwangbo had already offered his resignation last week. Hwangbo plans to leave as soon as the new committee members are named and the relevant duties are transferred. The technical committee leader is decided by the KFA’s executive committee.

One of the reasons the association had decided to retain Hong was that there is not much time left to prepare for the 2015 Asian Cup, which is a tournament to decide the leader in Asian soccer. Soccer fans’ interest is high as it was a fiercely contested battleground with the traditional rivals of Japan and Iran.

Yet as the preparation period for the Asian Cup is short, there will probably not be many who will want to take the job. Moreover, the sluggish results at this year’s World Cup has roused public sentiment against them. If the Asian Cup results are disappointing like at the World Cup, this will make the burden even heavier. Accordingly, many are calling for a long-term approach, not a short-term position to last only until the Asian Cup. Yet if a new coach is appointed with caution under a long-term perspective, the screening process will inevitably be drawn out and if so will result in the dilemma of even greater lack of preparation for the Asian Cup. Due to this, some say the coach should be named with the 2018 Russia World Cup in mind.

In this situation, there is a need to appoint a new coach by clarifying how much performance will be demanded of him ahead of the looming Asian Cup and what long-term goals the new coach seeks. Currently, there are two disputing opinions. One is that another Korean leader should be given the opportunity in order to train Korean coaches who will be responsible for the future of Korean soccer. The other is that a foreign coach who is unaffected by Korean soccer politics should be named.