By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter


Lawmakers Tuesday pounded the Korea Football Association (KFA) for its alleged accounting fraud and excessive control by its president Chung Mong-joon.

They severely reprimanded the KFA and Chung during Tuesday’s inspection, which was the first such occasion for the governing body of South Korean football.

Ruling Uri Party lawmakers Lee Kwang-chol and Ahn Min-seok said that the KFA manipulated official documents and kept their annual budget intentionally unclear. To prove the assertion, they presented the KFA’s general assembly’s attendance list and employee payment receipts, which contained forged signatures.

The two lawmakers also said that the KFA should open the records of tickets sales and sponsoring fees to the public as well as the broadcasting sales rights of the national team’s matches.

Answering the lawmakers, the KFA’s vice president Cho Chung-yun pledged that the association will be registered as an incorporated body until November and will have its accounts audited by outside firms.

``We are not satisfied with Wednesday’s inspection because the KFA didn’t provide us with enough information,’’ Kim Joon-soo, aide to Rep. Ahn, told The Korea Times. ``We have requested for more data and when we get it, we will proceed further in our questioning with other lawmakers.’’

MBC, South Korea’s second biggest TV station, dealt a blow to KFA on Tuesday night. In a one-hour program named ``KFA, the President’s Kingdom,’’ the broadcasters claimed that the organization has been operated as if it were the private property of Chung, rather than a public organization of football fans.

The program featured several football experts and former KFA employees who claimed that the organization has been nothing more that Chung’s personal political camp. ``Outsiders call them the Hyundai Football Association,’’ said Park Jong-hwan, a respected manager of Daegu FC who also coached the national team in ‘80s and ‘90s.

Chung, son of Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung, is a five-term lawmaker from Ulsan and he is also the owner of Hyundai Heavy Industries and vice president of FIFA. He was reelected for his fourth term this year.

The 53-year-old was inducted into the KFA hall of fame which opened this month at Seoul World Cup Stadium for his achievement in successfully hosting the 2002 World Cup. Among the eight initial inductees, Chung is the only person who does not have experience as a football player or coach.

According to Reps. Lee and Ahn, Chung filled the association with his own people since he took over the post in 1993. Among 29 employees who are on a director level or above, 13 come from Hyundai affiliates or Chung’s presidential election camp in 2002.

Thousands of protests and criticisms were posted by angry football fans on major news Web sites in South Korea and the KFA’s official Web site as well, most of them calling for both Chung and vice president Cho to resign from their posts.

indizio@koreatimes.co.kr