In 1921 the first nationally organized football tournament took place, the 1st All Joseon Football Championship, involving eighteen teams of school, university and public level. It was the first tournament run under official football rules, but acceptance of the implementation of these new laws was a major problem, which resulted in the tournament ending without an actual champion.
The tournament was held at the Paichai Academy sports ground in Seoul from February 11th to the 13th. Despite the country having been in the midst of a cold spell, they got a full house for the opening day of the tournament, with admission set at 20 jeon for adults and 10 jeon for students. The Joseon Athletics Association held the tournament in February in a bid to capitalise on what was seen as a 'craze' for sports, as the 1st Joseon Baseball Championship had taken place at the same venue on November 14th 1920 and had been a great success with spectators.
Eighteen teams took part in the tournament, but two of the three classes ended up being cancelled on the opening day. Three of the matches in the student class were brought to premature ends after disputes and protests over refereeing decisions so in the end the entire class was called to a halt. The adult class of the tournament suffered a similar fate, but the youth class made it to the second day and as far as the semi-finals before it too was cancelled. During the semi-final between the Paichai team and the Pyeongyang Soongsil University team, the referee gave a second-half offside decision against Soongsil which led to fighting between supporters of both sides. The fighting, coupled with the protests from the Soongsil players, caused the entire tournament to end without champions in any of the classes.
It wasn't uncommon for football matches in Korea at the time to be disrupted by altercations either on the pitch or amongst spectators, and one match in 1921 was cancelled because a number of female university students started scolding some gisaeng they saw smoking in the company of several gentlemen spectators.
The second and third editions of the All Joseon Football Championship both took place in 1922. Hwemoon High School won the regular section of both tournaments, but the youth section had different winners. Pyeongyang Athletic won the second edition, but the team they edged past to claim that victory, the Young Men's Buddhist Association, won the third edition later in the year.
The Buddhist team then went on to win the fourth edition of the tournament in 1923 and were considered to be quite a force at the time. They were strongly fancied to win their third consecutive tournament at the 1924 competition, and thus go on an overseas trip, as they had been promised should they win three tournaments in a row, but lost out in the October 31st semi-final to eventual winners Health Sports Club. The events that led to that defeat were rather extraordinary.
The players from the Health Sports Club approached the Buddhist club on the morning of the semi-final match and asked if they would like to play a practice match before the actual game at 3pm. The Buddhist team agreed, considering that the request was made in such a polite manner and recorded a comfortable 3-0 win. Having claimed such an easy victory, the Buddhist players then went off for lunch, headed to the bathhouse for a quick shower or went for a nap. Most of the players mistakenly assumed that the morning practice game was actually the real semi-final, as only three of them turned up for the 3pm kick-off. Rather than forfeit the game they picked out a number of middle school students from the crowd behind the goal to make up the numbers, and consequently lost the match 6-0. That was the last game the team ever played and shortly after the Buddhist Association team were wound up, though two of the players would go on to form the Joseon Football Club upon their return from studying in Germany in April 1925, and that team won the 1925 edition of the tournament.
That 1925 tournament, the sixth edition, took place at the Paichai sports ground from April 28th to April 30th, and 22 teams took part in total in the four classes at elementary, regular, youth and professional level. The inclusion of the professional class was intended to revolutionise Korean football, and a number of important changes had been made to the tournament. In the previous five tournaments, games that ended in draws were won by the team with the highest tally of corner kicks and free kicks. They decided to do away with that from the sixth edition and instead replay the games. If the replay ended in a stalemate then they would draw lots to determine who would advance.
The completion of Kyungsung stadium in March 1926, the first dedicated sports stadium in the capital, allowed for much greater attendances and from 1927 all matches in the tournament were played at that venue.
Things were progressing, however, but in order to bring a real semblance of order and unity to football on the peninsula, organized football associations similar to those governing the game in Europe were needed. Korea, under the control of Japan, was always likely to be heavily influenced by Japanese culture and methods, particularly with regard to absorbing American and European expertise and methodology. The first officially organised footballing body in Korea, the Joseon Football Referees Association was founded on 22nd May 1928, a direct imitation of the corresponding Japanese association. Then, on 19th September 1933 the Joseon Football Association (known today as the Korean Football Association) was formed, following the Japanese model. Park Seung-bin was the inaugural President of this fledgling football body charged with the task of organizing Korean football.
Football, by its very simplistic nature of participation, quickly became a popular sport throughout the country. It was a sport ideally suited to Koreans, given their strong natural competitiveness and will to succeed. The annual Seoul-Pyeongyang Football Match series, established in 1929, raised enormously the profile of organised team football within the country.
