The Soccer World’s Food Chain

When a coach of a college soccer team goes to a winter training camp with his players, the coaches of the local high school soccer teams go on alert. During the day, the coaches of the high school soccer teams are required to stay around the college team’s coach, and at night, are required to prepare drinking parties for them.

Parents of high school soccer players are required to go to extremes to get their children onto a college soccer team. Parents have to take care of players during away matches, and most of the team’s working expenses come from the pockets of parents. High school coaches who are able to get many of their players into schools with high reputations lord it over the parents, and the coaches of college teams rule over the high school coaches.

Some of these irregularities, which occurred frequently 10 years ago, seem to have disappeared. However, according to the prosecution of cases of dishonest college admissions of college soccer players released by the police, some irregularities still exist.

In a system in which parents are willing to do anything to get their children into college, college team coaches are always running short of working expenses and are paid a small salary, and high school coaches have positions that can only be secured by the college admissions of their players, the remaining irregularities will not easily be removed.

A high school coach in Gyeonggi Province said with a self-scorning sigh, “Now, it’s not only colleges where irregularity exists. The irregularities are also happening in elementary, middle, and high schools.”

Experts believe it will difficult to eradicate these irregularities with regulation and investigation. Dr. Lee Yong-sik of the Korea Institute of Sports Science said, “The only way to eradicate the irregularities is to do away with the scholarship sports system and prepare a system in which the players carry out both studies and sports.”

Jong-Koo Yang yjongk@donga.com