KT, Nexon, SPC at loss over sponsorship with footballer Lee Kang-in

An ad featuring footballer Lee Kang-in is seen in front of a food store in Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap

KT, Nexon and SPC are in the hot seat over their sponsorship deals with football player Lee Kang-in after the attacking midfielder for Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) came under severe public criticism for his altercation with Korean team captain Son Heung-min.

Lee was rumored to have thrown a punch at Son during a dinner, a day before the semifinal of the Asian Cup on Feb. 7. Son dislocated his finger in the tussle, and Korea ended up losing the match against Jordan.

Public fury reached its peak a few days after overseas media outlets reported the dissention between the two star players. The criticism was directed mostly at Lee, as Son is considered the most respected player in the history of the Korean national team.

The scandal is driving the companies into a corner, as they are at a loss over their sponsorship contracts with Lee.

KT, one of the nation’s top three mobile carriers, is on track to remove traces of Lee at its stores nationwide. The company promoted Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S24 with posters featuring Lee. A number of its sales offices have been spotted removing the posters.

KT clinched a sponsorship contract with Lee in 2019, and renewed the contract last month. The company declined to comment on whether it would cancel the contract with Lee.

"We are monitoring the issue, and consider taking actions in multifaceted ways," a spokesman at KT said. He refused to give other comments.

Nexon was also hit by the escalating public reproach against Lee. Last month, the firm’s FC Online game launched a special event featuring Lee.

Paris Baguette, a bakery franchise of SPC, is perplexed over its advertising partnership with PSG. Even if the company has not signed a direct sponsorship contract with Lee, his involvement in the scandal, in itself, looks to do little good in enhancing its brand image.

Football fans and customers here are also leaving negative comments on the social media channels of I Like Chicken, better known as Alachi here. The chicken franchise hired Lee to be its sponsor model, spending more than 500 million won. But customers denounced the company for not deleting promotional posts including Lee, leaving negative comments on its official Instagram page.

Industry officials said companies that have signed sponsorship contracts with the athlete will hold internal reviews on whether to break them by calculating the gravity of the scandal.

“Each sponsorship contract comes with a string of clauses on the possible suspension of the contract, if the advertising model is mired in a controversy,” an official from a local company said on condition of anonymity. “Each firm will decide whether to maintain the status quo or not, after taking into consideration how long and how seriously the issue makes headlines.”