"Something that was customary at the time." That's how an unnamed KFA official reportedly described paying for sexual entertainment for foreign referees at massage parlors across Seoul, Changwon, and Ulsan in 2011 and 2012. The Korean Football Association would prefer you focus on the word "customary" rather than what it was customary for.
The allegations, published Thursday by Korean broadcaster JTBC and sourced to a 2016 South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism investigation, claim KFA officials used corporate credit cards at adult entertainment centres — reportedly involving as many as a dozen foreign national referees, in the lead-up to key South Korean national team matches. JTBC stopped short of confirming the entertainment affected results. It didn't need to. The question mark over those matches is now permanent.
An apology that didn't say what it was apologising for
The KFA's response this week was a masterclass in institutional vagueness. The association didn't name the scandal directly, instead issuing a broad apology for "inappropriate conduct" and "various controversies" — lumping the referee allegations in with their catastrophic 2026 World Cup campaign as though they were roughly equivalent embarrassments.
"We wish to clearly state that such inappropriate conduct or misuse of corporate cards is absolutely not occurring at the association at present," the KFA said. Which is reassuring. Probably.
The association did separately tell JTBC: "there may have been unfortunate incidents 15 years ago, but we have since implemented strict internal guidelines." Fifteen years. Corporate cards. Adult entertainment centres. Strict internal guidelines.
The worst possible timing
The KFA did not need this right now. South Korea went out of the 2026 World Cup — held in North America — with one win and two losses, finishing in the group stage despite having multiple players active at top European clubs. Coach Hong Myung-bo, controversially re-hired in 2024 despite a underwhelming stint in 2014, has since left the country, reportedly to California. The South Korean National Assembly had previously interrogated Hong and KFA officials over his second appointment. President Lee Jae-myung publicly apologised for the World Cup performance and pledged government intervention.
The K-Football Reform Commission, launched in July and co-chaired by former Manchester United and South Korea legend Park Ji-sung, is already working through KFA's structural problems. Park acknowledged this week his commission couldn't "handle at all" the 2011 massage parlour allegations — which is fair enough, because the body investigating institutional failure probably shouldn't also be investigating potential match manipulation.
Any residual faith South Korean football fans had in the KFA's competence has taken another hit. Referee integrity questions, even old ones with ambiguous outcomes, have a way of lingering. Anyone who wagered on South Korean national team matches during that 2011-12 period now has entirely legitimate reasons to feel uneasy about what they were actually betting on.
"Our association finds itself in a truly dire situation," the KFA admitted. At least they got that part right.
