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Seongnam FC manager Park Jong-hwan speaks during a press conferece after taking the job in December. He resigned on Tuesday over allegations of assaulting a player during practice last week. / Yonhap |
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Park Jong-hwan, the hot-headed bully who was Korea's most successful football coach of the 20th century, was never going to be a good fit with the 21st.
One imagines Seongnam FC nodding glumly as the 76-year-old stepped down as its manager on Tuesday amid public uproar over him assaulting a player during practice last week.
"Park offered his intention to step down this morning. We have not decided yet on how we will pick the next manager and assistant coach Lee Sang-yoon will serve as the interim manager for the time being,'' said an official from Seongnam FC's front office.
Officials from the team's front office and the Seongnam Metropolitan Government, which owns the K League Classic club, had been failing to agree on whether Park should be suspended or fired outright.
Shin Mun-sun, the longtime football pundit who now heads the team's football operations, called for Park's axing. However, Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, who had a role in luring Park out of retirement ahead of this season, was not ready to cut ties with him entirely.
Before making the decision for them, Park had been downplaying the severity of the incident.
After the team fell behind 2-0 in a practice match against Sungkyunkwan University last Wednesday in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Park gathered his players at halftime and shouted profanities at them before hitting Kim Nam-gon and Kim Seong-jun several times in their faces. Kim Nam-gon was hit four times and Kim Seong-jun, twice, according to team officials.
After witnesses first wrote about the incident on Seongnam FC's online board, Park admitted to physical contact, but claimed he just flicked the players in the head "once or twice.''
Park's history makes it difficult to grant him the benefit of the doubt. He was a prolific manager for the Korean national teams and the mighty Seongnam Ilhwa (which preceded Seongnam FC) squads of the 1980s and early 1990s, but also allowed his numerous acts of anger and violence grow into legend.
In his first year as Seongnam Ilhwa manager, Park was suspended for 18 games for aggressively protesting a call during a match in August 1989. Two weeks later, Park, still under suspension, barged into the ground during a game against Pohang and kicked the referee, which earned him a new year-long suspension.
He was hit with a six-month suspension in 1992 for pushing a referee to the ground. During his time as manager of Daegu FC between 2003 and 2007, Park was disciplined four different times for entering the referee's room to protest calls.
In returning to football with Seongnam FC earlier this year, Park claimed that he was a changed man. But he soon came under criticism for disrespecting players, such as telling reporters that star midfielder Server Djeparov was ''not even a footballer'' and striker Kim Dong-seb was ''passive and soft.''
Then Park felt the need to hit Kim Seong-jun and Kim Nam-gon to get their attention. Seongnam FC is now regretting it ever associated with Park.
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