[Anchor]
The structural problems behind the decline of South Korean football following the North and Central American World Cup are being laid bare. One of the root causes is the fragile ecosystem of professional football, which should serve as its foundation. According to an exhaustive investigation of professional football clubs by SBS, the vast majority carry only the sign of being "professional" while being virtually impossible to operate without massive tax subsidies.
First, an exclusive report by reporter Lee Jeong-Chan.
[Reporter]
The current K League 1 and 2 professional football divisions consist of a total of 29 teams, of which 17 are so-called "citizens' clubs" backed by local governments.
Criticism has continually been raised that these citizens' clubs rely on subsidies raised through local government taxes instead of generating their own revenue, but an exhaustive SBS investigation revealed that the situation is far more severe than expected.
An analysis of the financial data of 14 clubs—excluding three teams that newly joined this year—showed that the total subsidies received by these 14 teams from local governments last year amounted to 140.1 billion won, accounting for 64% of their total revenue.
Among them, only three clubs—Gangwon, Daegu, and Incheon, which have long histories and operate in the form of stock corporations—had higher independent revenue than subsidies.
Excluding them, the subsidy dependence of the remaining 11 teams reaches 73.4%, and even if the independent revenues of all 11 teams are combined, it falls short of the independent revenues of the three clubs: Gangwon, Daegu, and Incheon.
What is even more serious is that this level of subsidy is not even enough for the survival of the citizens' clubs.
Paju faced the crisis of unpaid wages from the very first year of its transition to a professional status, while Gimhae stood at a crossroads of survival after recording just two wins in its debut season.
[Jung Young-du / Mayor of Gimhae: If we judge that there is neither financial sustainability nor public interest, I will inevitably have to make a decision as the club owner.]
Gimpo, whose accounting staff member was arrested over allegations of embezzling around 8.0 billion won, is barely surviving by plugging its financial holes with supplementary budgets.
Comparison is virtually meaningless with major European leagues that operate professionally based on sponsorship income, ticket and merchandise sales, and broadcasting rights fees. This also stands in stark contrast to domestic professional baseball, which has enhanced its "self-sustainability" by reducing the proportion of support funds from parent companies from 41% in 2018 to 25% last year.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
(Video Reported by Yoo Dong-hyuk, Hwang In-seok | Video Edited by Lee Jae-sung | Design by Lim Chan-hyuk)
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