Wrongful Admission of Soccer Scholarship Students Exposed

It has been revealed that soccer team managers of certain prestigious universities received huge amounts of bribes from soccer team managers and parents of high school students, and wrongfully admitted students to their school in return.

Especially since some former National Team managers are also known to be involved, and most involved high schools and universities have prestigious soccer teams, this case is expected to lay bare another systematic wrongdoing in sports since the draft-dodging scandal.

The Investigation and its Impact-

The Special Investigation Unit of the Police Department revealed on October 27 that the former soccer team manager of a certain university, “Mr. K,” the current manager of another university, and a university employee have been convicted of receiving bribes from soccer players and parents of high schools in downtown Seoul in return for admission, and have been banned from leaving the country.

According to the police, K and others received around several millions to several 10 ten millions won from parents over the last four years in return for admitting high school soccer players to their school.

These facts were revealed when high school team managers and parents of soccer scholarship students were questioned on bribery charges.

Police will be issuing search warrants on the managers and teams involved in this case and look for evidence, as well as investigating the bank accounts of high school and college team managers.

One police officer said, “We will arrest the parents and managers as soon as their charges are confirmed,” and added, “We will report the names of the students to their schools.”

About five universities and nine high schools are estimated to be involved, and about 15 to 20 students are known to have been admitted to college this way.

Police said, “We are making inquiries into the claim that there has even been wrongdoing in the admission exam for the 2005 school year.”

Because of this, there is a possibility that certain specially-admitted students may have their admissions cancelled.

Problem and Solution-

Sports experts point out that the reason why there are so many wrongful admissions of sports scholarship students is because the managers usually have absolute power in nominating or selecting students.

During the investigations, it has been revealed that certain university team managers blatantly demanded bribes from high school team managers and parents.

Some high school team managers received a considerable amount of money from parents for introducing them to university team managers, and the parents gave money to them for their children’s admission.

There have also been cases when high school team managers took bribes and did not introduce parents to the university afterwards.

Experts are saying it is time to take a fundamental look at and find the solutions for the problems of special admission programs for sports players.

needjung@donga.com