Local Government Sports Subsidies Leaking; Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission Orders Corrective Actions and Requests Investigation into Embezzlement and Breach of Trust

Subsidy projects aimed at expanding resident participation in sports activities by some basic local governments have been found to be poorly managed.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) announced today (the 10th) that it selected 12 local governments with suspected poor settlement and management of sports sector subsidies and investigated their implementation status over the past three years (2022–2024), uncovering various problematic cases.

First, revenues such as athlete participation fees generated when local sports organizations hosted various competitions were supposed to be reflected in business plans and other documents, but many cases were omitted from the subsidy application to settlement stages.

Federation A is suspected of embezzling approximately 140 million won by repeatedly submitting identical data to multiple basic local governments as proof of revenue usage.

It was found that Sports Council B arbitrarily spent a portion of the revenue generated from participation fees on condolence money for association leaders.

Cases of subsidy embezzlement were also confirmed, such as the secretary-general of Association C pocketing some 390 million won in project funds across 162 instances by falsely ordering supplies to be used for projects using business registration certificates in the names of family members and friends.

In addition, circumstances were captured where sports organizations arbitrarily used sports event attraction funds without proof or settlement, or where subsidies were used as discretionary allowances for executives of related associations.

The ACRC explained, "The scale of subsidies injected into subsidy projects where revenue was not properly managed amounts to at least 20 billion won or more."

The ACRC decided to notify basic local governments of the investigation results to recommend corrective measures such as recovery, and to request investigations into matters requiring criminal punishment, such as embezzlement and breach of trust.

ACRC Chairperson Jung Il-yeon stated, "We will continuously monitor to ensure that various subsidies for projects utilizing public finances are used for their proper purposes."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.