We decided to increase the number of coaches, expand medical infrastructure, and reorganize the personal trainer system.
Treatment options, training autonomy, rest before convocation, etc. are expected to be expanded to all sports.
“If the association does not improve, special measures will be taken, such as designation of a management group and suspension of budget support.”
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has decided to request a police investigation regarding the so-called ‘payback’ suspicions of Kim Taek-gyu, president of the Badminton Association.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism held a briefing on the results of the Badminton Association (hereinafter referred to as the Association) office inspection and auxiliary project performance inspection at the Seoul Government Complex Annex on the 31st and announced this.
In addition, follow-up measures related to national team operation and support, association administration, and subsidy execution were also announced.
This investigation was launched after Ahn Se-young (22, Samsung Life Insurance), a gold medalist at the 2024 Paris Olympics, made a decisive statement to the association and the national team.
Lee Jeong-woo, head of the investigation team at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Director of Sports), said, “If the association does not fix this again, we will determine that it is incapable of self-correction and will pursue special measures such as designating a management body to fire all executives of the association and suspending budget support other than player support.”
Last year, the association received sponsorship items worth about 150 million won through a verbal contract while purchasing shuttlecocks and other items as part of a government-supported project.
This year, there is a written contract to receive goods worth 140 million won.
According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the sponsorship items delivered in this way were distributed arbitrarily to regions without formal procedures.
Last year, supplies worth 40 million won were provided to the Taean-gun Badminton Association, which belongs to the chairman of the association’s public offering project promotion committee.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said, “We will request an investigation from the Songpa Police Station in Seoul, which received a complaint against the president on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust,” and requested the association’s Sports Fair Committee to dismiss the president and severely discipline the secretary-general.
As a follow-up measure for violating the subsidy law, a return of 150 million won for the previous year was ordered and an additional penalty of 450 million won was imposed.
The refund amount for this year will be confirmed after business settlement.
In addition, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that Chairman Kim used profanity and verbal abuse during an internal workshop and ordered excessive protocol, adding, “This is equivalent to bullying in the workplace.
“We will report this to the Seoul Eastern Employment and Labor Office,” he said.
In addition, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that the association had signed a total of 2.61 billion won worth of contracts with sponsors since the year before last, and decided to take measures such as requesting disciplinary action for practitioners, returning violation amounts, and imposing additional sanctions.
Regarding the 16 million won paid to the accounting firm where the association’s auditor is the CEO, he said, “We will recover the violation amount and impose additional sanctions for the 8.25 million won paid after the transaction prohibition regulations were implemented.”
In addition, we confirmed that withholding tax was not paid on the meeting participation fee of 17.85 million won received by the association’s executive director and notified the tax authorities.
Incentives (68 million won) and holiday bonuses (1.5 million won) that some executives had collected in the name of attracting sponsorship were returned to the association.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also announced on this day improvement measures related to the problems with the association and national team management, which Ahn Se-young (22, Samsung Life Insurance) pointed out immediately after winning the gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Of the 51 members of the national team, 36 responded to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s survey.
Based on this, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that it would increase the number of national team coaches from the current 13 to 20 to provide customized training tailored to the characteristics of singles and doubles.
Unlike before, the plan is to have separate coaches for singles and doubles under the general manager and assign 10 coaches, 6 trainers, and 1 video team member.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also promised to expand infrastructure such as medical space and manpower, saying, “We will respect players’ right to choose for injury diagnosis and treatment, and activate the association’s medical committee to strengthen advisory functions such as cross-verification when diagnosing injuries.”
Regarding personal trainers, who were virtually disallowed, he said, “We will spread the example of the Korea Football Association, which has established related systems after the 2023 Qatar Asian Cup, to other sports.”
The Football Association grants personal trainer qualifications only to those who hold physical therapist, health and exercise manager, and athlete trainer qualifications, and stipulates that they will be hired by the association on a part-time basis only during the national team call-up period.
In addition, while staying at the Jincheon National Team Athletes’ Village in North Chungcheong Province, it was decided to allow national team athletes to go out and stay out on weekends and public holidays in principle, and said that regular monitoring of irregularities such as cleaning and laundry will be conducted starting next year.
Regarding the rule restricting national team players’ self-funded participation in international competitions, they requested correction, saying, “Other Olympics and Asian Games events do not separately restrict national team players’ self-funded participation in international competitions and participation in overseas leagues or overseas invitational competitions.” .
A corrective order was issued for the abolition of regulations restricting non-national team members from participating in international competitions and respect for players’ decision-making rights regarding equipment directly related to performance, which had already been requested at last month’s mid-term briefing.
Regarding the method of selecting the national doubles team based on 70% of performance and 30% of evaluation scores, “In order to minimize problems where luck plays a large role, the scope of ‘priority selection’ will be expanded to 32nd in the world rankings, and the national team under the age of 23 will be selected.” “We need to consider separate selection and ways to expand the number of (all) national team players,” he said.
Regarding the regulations limiting the contract period, down payment, and annual salary of new unemployed players, he said, “We are working on improvements with the Unemployment Federation.”
Respecting players’ options for injury diagnosis and treatment, respecting autonomy in early morning and mountain training, allowing going out and staying out on weekends and public holidays, establishing a personal trainer system, providing rest before convening the national team, and providing opportunities for leaders to submit opinions when the association makes decisions regarding the athlete team, etc. It is expected to be expanded to all sports through revision of the Sports Council’s strengthening training operation guidelines.
Yonhap News
