Korean football has often been accused of lacking in entertainment, with defensively-minded teams and half-empty stadiums the norm for the K-League. Huh Jung-moo’s determination to draw his way to mid-table obscurity with Chunnam Dragons and FC Seoul’s apparent lack of desire to actually bother putting the ball into the net under Senol Gunes have done little to dispel the notion that it’s defences first in Korean football. The national team even had the foresight to begin preparations for life under Huh Jung-moo during the Asian Cup as Pim Verbeek’s side produced a string of uninspiring performances that resulted in a host of goalless draws. The U23 team also joined in the fun for good measure, recording a bunch of goalless draws themselves during qualification for the 2008 Olympics.
Just as the 2007 K-League season looked to be ending as it has so often done in recent seasons, with a certain yellow-shirted club based not far outside of Seoul picking up the championship trophy, Pohang Steelers exploded into life at just the right time and stormed through the playoffs to their first title victory in fifteen years. How exciting, everyone thought, and a dramatic way to round off the year. The manner in which Pohang claimed victory should have been the only major talking point around the end of the year, but unfortunately the National League championship playoff provided something which eclipsed even that feat.
Ulsan Mipo Dockyard’s victory in the first stage of the National League season this year, their first stage triumph after finishing runners-up in five of the eight stages over the previous four seasons, provided their small but loyal band of supporters with plenty of reason to overdo it a bit on the soju in celebration. There had been disappointment for Mipo in past seasons, where it was usually a case of “so near yet so far” in league campaigns. Undefeated in the 2004 K2 League but unable to secure a championship playoff spot, their fairytale run to the final of the 2005 FA Cup ended in narrow defeat to a Jeonbuk side that would go on to become champions of Asia, and they were edged out of a championship playoff spot in 2006 by Gimpo Hallelujah. The first stage win had finally given them something to celebrate, and there was cause for extra celebration and plenty more soju for the fans when Mipo officials, in the wake of the triumph, reaffirmed their intention to seek promotion to the K-League should they prevail in the post-season championship playoff.
Their initial intentions to seek promotion had been made clear when the National League required every member club to state their position with regard to the issue at the beginning of 2007, after Goyang Kookmin Bank had won the 2006 championship, became eligible for promotion to the K-League and then eventually changed their minds about taking up the chance of moving to the top division when they realized it would actually be rather expensive to do so. The financial issues of K-League clubs have been well documented in recent seasons, with the general consensus being that in order to take part effectively in the K-League one should enjoy throwing very large sums of money into big black holes and not actually bother about ever recouping very much of it. There had been opportunities for Kookmin Bank to indicate they would rather not do something like that well before the championship playoff final took place, but instead they waited until after winning the title before announcing they’d rather keep their money for other purposes and trying to camouflage their deceit with all sorts of different excuses.
It was perhaps inevitable then that Mipo’s opponents in the championship playoff would be a team that had previously declared they would not seek promotion to the K-League should they win the National League title. Suwon City’s march to the second stage title was impressive as they dropped just two of the thirty-three points on offer, but they had already stated they would never seek to compete with their much wealthier and significantly more influential city rivals Suwon Samsung Bluewings. For both sets of supporters however few they may be in number, and regardless of the supposed ‘carrot’ on offer in shape of potential promotion to the K-League, the first leg of the championship playoff should have been one of the greatest days of following the club, a ‘reward’ for some of the dismal draws and dreadful defeats witnessed in seasons past which make the moments of success all the more special. Instead the match turned into a farce, with five Suwon City players along with manager Kim Chang-kyum all being red carded and the game abandoned. Controversial decisions by a referee no stranger to controversy led to the National League again hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
As a semi-professional league it’s not at all surprising the fully professional K-League dominates the media headlines, and it is rare for the lower division to actually feature on news radars at all, never mind provide the lead news stories for days on end. The Goyang Kookmin Bank controversy at the end of 2006 was extremely damaging in terms of the amount of negative press it generated for the National League, and the organization did well to seek the guarantees from member clubs as to who would actually seek promotion prior to the start of the 2007 season. Whilst the Korean media fell over themselves to report on Park Ji-sung’s latest injury, Pim Verbeek’s inability to properly organize the national side into an attractive team to watch, Ahn Jung-hwan’s arguments with hecklers at reserve matches and whether or not Lee Chun-soo might actually join a club big enough to match the size of his ego, the National League barely merited a worthwhile mention until referee Kim Sung-mo decided to put his red card to good use in the championship playoff final.
That the National League had to get a guarantee from Suwon City that they would actually turn up for the second leg and not boycott the match in protest was an indication of just how farcical the promotion situation had become. They duly turned up for the second leg, without five of their first team and their manager, and crashed to a 4-1 defeat which gave Ulsan Mipo the championship victory. That should have been that, but then Ulsan Mipo revealed that, like Goyang in 2006, they themselves weren’t actually too keen after all on the idea of spending a small fortune in December on anything other than Christmas presents and might just stay where they were. It is difficult to see why it took a championship playoff victory for Ulsan Mipo’s owners to realize that their plan of seeking promotion to the K-League and relocating the club to the Seoul World Cup stadium, which at the time of formulation back in September was projected would cost a minimum of $9,500,000, was never going to get any cheaper and was actually going to cost them real money and not an equivalent amount in magic beans.
Perhaps the single most disappointing thing about the National League is the lack of interest shown in what is officially the second tier of Korean football. Matches are often played in front of crowds consisting primarily of friends, family and girlfriends of the players involved and in some cases, especially on warm summer days, the sports facilities and park areas in the vicinity of the stadium are busier than the spectator areas inside the stadium itself. Whilst it is perhaps unreasonable to expect semi-professional teams with just a few years of history to attract healthy hardcore supports, it is disappointing that in general little seems to be done to attract people along to National League matches.
On the odd occasion that National League sides have faced K-League opposition in FA Cup ties in the past, the lower league sides have given a good account of themselves and several have recorded famous victories over their professional counterparts. In particular, Incheon Korail enjoyed several victories over K-League opposition under former manager Lee Hyun-chang, eliminating Bucheon SK, Chunnam Dragons, Suwon Samsung Bluewings and Incheon United in FA Cup tournaments in years gone by. Lee’s replacement as manager, Kim Seung-hee, came extremely close to eliminating FC Seoul from this year’s FA Cup competition before Korail eventually lost out in a penalty shoot-out.
Kim, a talented young manager who spent his entire playing career with the Korail team before moving onto the coaching staff in 1999, put together an exciting young side that produced some great football at times during 2007 and it is good to see striker Kim Min-su, who opened the scoring in Korail’s cup tie against FC Seoul, rewarded for his fine displays this season with a professional contract at Daejeon Citizen through the K-League draft.
Korail themselves were somewhat of a frustrating side to watch during the 2007 season. Clearly better than the poorest sides in the National League but not quite good enough to match the top guns, they provided highlights such as defeating Goyang Kookmin Bank 3-0 at home before losing the return fixture 6-0. Sitting in the Goyang stadium as the goals flew in, the memories of Kim Min-su’s hat-trick in the first game and the performance against FC Seoul softened the blow of the defeat, but also highlighted the fact that a genuinely entertaining competition just wasn’t getting the recognition it deserved.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of both Goyang and Ulsan Mipo Dockyard’s decisions to reject promotion, the fact remains that what is on offer presently is not a genuine promotion spot, but rather a cut-price franchising opportunity for corporations currently operating cut-price football clubs. It is clear that if Ulsan Mipo Dockyard had taken up the option of promotion to the K-League, the team that took the field in 2008 would bear very little resemblance to the one that clinched the title in 2007, both in terms of playing staff and location, with the team likely to relocate to the Seoul World Cup stadium ahead of any participation in the K-League.
The K-League itself would greatly benefit from a regular change in membership of at least one or two clubs per season in order to provide a bit of variety to the fixture list. As appealing as the rivalry between FC Seoul and Suwon is, there are only so many times one can watch the same fixture in any one season and, if things had worked out differently, there was the possibility that both clubs could have faced each other on nine separate occasions under the current structure. The revamped Hauzen Cup, split into two groups of six instead of one single league competition, was a welcome change but there was surely a missed opportunity to invite some National League sides into the competition. With the two AFC Champions League participants given byes from group stages, the twelve remaining K-League sides could have been joined by four National League teams to make up four groups of four before proceeding to the knockout stage.
Such a move would provide variety to the K-League schedule as well as exposing National League sides to increased levels of competition. Recent performances in the FA Cup suggest that National League sides do have what it takes to be competitive against K-League opposition, and in the absence of any direct avenue to face K-League opposition on a regular basis, a revamped League Cup would go at least some way to increasing the level of interest in lower league clubs and the quality of opposition they play against.
With two of the richest clubs at National League level having rejected the opportunity to join the K-League in the past two seasons, it seems unlikely that under the present set-up any side from the second tier will be in a position to move up to the top flight in the foreseeable future. Much is made of the English Championship’s promotion playoff final being the “richest game of football in the world” owing to the minimum of $60,000,000 guaranteed to the victors through promotion to the Premiership, and it contrasts greatly to the situation in Korea where the lower level champions are required to pay $2,000,000 for the privilege of playing top division football. It is perhaps more worthwhile for those in charge of Korean football to concentrate firstly on getting a working promotion and relegation system in operation between the National League and K3 League, where teams are at similar levels in terms of operating budgets, attendances and setup.
Of course the one simple solution would be to elevate the National League champions regardless of whether they are able to meet the financial requirements for entry to the K-League. It is unlikely that sides such as Goyang Kookmin Bank, Ulsan Mipo Dockyard, Gangneung City or Incheon Korail would do any worse than Gwangju Sangmu have in recent seasons. As it is though, the FA Cup remains the only competition likely to provide lower division teams with the opportunity of locking horns with the K-League big guns, so I will be hoping for a long cup run from Incheon Korail in 2008, and K3 League sides Seoul United and Bucheon FC 1995 to be drawn against FC Seoul and Jeju United respectively.
Now that would be anything but boring.
Mark Trevena
