A dismal group-stage exit. Expectations were high for a national team that had assembled its "golden generation," but humiliating performances cost it a place in the round of 32. The string of poor outings also dropped Korea in the FIFA rankings to 32nd, its lowest in four years and six months since it stood at 33rd in December 2021.
The problem is that such poor play is unlikely to end with this World Cup. Unless the Korea Football Association (KFA), led by President Chung Mong-gyu, and the broader football community make parallel efforts at self-reflection, a tragedy like this World Cup is likely to be repeated.
The greatest responsibility for this World Cup debacle lies with the KFA and its head, President Chung Mong-gyu. Chung, who was first elected KFA president in 2013, won a fourth consecutive term in January 2025 with an overwhelming 85.7% of the vote. Ahead of the election, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism formally demanded that he be given a "heavy disciplinary measure of suspension of qualifications or higher," but Chung pushed back by filing for a court injunction against the audit findings notification and the call for action. When the court granted the request and the measure was temporarily suspended, Chung seized the opening to press ahead with his candidacy and held on to the top post in Korean football.
The reason Chung was able to keep his position lies in the current method of electing the president. The presidential election is an indirect system, conducted through votes by ex-officio delegates such as city and provincial association presidents, national league presidents and K League 1 representative directors, along with an electoral college of leaders including head coaches and assistant coaches, referees and player representatives.
This means that by winning over only the major candidates to his side, one can sit in the top seat of Korean football without a substantive vision. That is how weak the electoral system itself is.
For this reason, there have long been steady calls to introduce a direct election system for the presidency. Although it was not realized before the "North and Central America debacle," it must be introduced even now to break the vicious cycle built up under the indirect system.
The president's "imperial authority" is also one of the tasks that must be eliminated. The president wields enormous influence over the appointment of board members such as vice presidents. The board and the delegates' general assembly are also structured so that they cannot challenge the president's authority.
The heads of the football associations in Germany, a football powerhouse, and in neighboring Japan are different from Korea's. They serve as roles closer to a symbolic representative or the organization's chief executive officer (CEO). The president's authority is used when coordination or mediation is needed among the various subcommittees that handle practical affairs.
The procedural legitimacy and standards of the national team coach selection process must also be firmly upheld. In the two most recent coach appointments, all of the existing systems and standards were ignored. When former coach Jürgen Klinsmann (Germany) was appointed, the executive leadership contacted the candidate before the committee had even finished forming, and the process led to his appointment. In the case of coach Hong, an unprecedented situation occurred in which the priority rankings and scores assigned through a vote within the committee were ignored, and an administrator in a political position conducted on-site interviews on his own and made the final selection of the coach.
The lack of expertise in the KFA's technical division is also one of the tasks that must be resolved. As the members of the technical organizations such as the National Team Reinforcement Committee and the Technical Development Committee are mostly filled by non-permanent positions, continuity and accountability in their work are relatively low. Because they have no decision-making authority, they have repeatedly faced structural limitations, such as being notified after the fact of policy decisions by the executive leadership and other association management.
The national team needs a firm football philosophy forged through long debate and experimentation by technical experts. Rather than wavering depending on who the coach is, the team should accumulate data over a long period under a firm philosophy and develop tactics suited to it. Europe's powerhouses also maintain the strength of their national teams by upholding a firm football philosophy based on data.
Huh Jung-moo, a former national team coach, stressed, "This is not a matter that ends by holding only one coach responsible," adding, "Only when bone-cutting efforts at self-purification come first, such as renewing the human makeup within the association including the executive leadership and securing more permanent positions in the technical division, will a disastrous result like this tournament not be repeated."
