By Haley Cha
Beloved sports players Park Ji-sung of Manchester United and Choo Shin-soo of the Cleveland Indians travel long distances to Korea for mega-events and fly back to their team abroad.
This is a conventional phenomenon but one may ask why top Korean players are not in Korea.
A possible culprit is the draft system. Exporting sports stars has been induced by notorious regulations, which exploits players by violating their fundamental rights.
The draft system is basically an enforced nominating system for newcomers. This is widely accepted throughout all Korean sports leagues. The teams evenly share the rookie players. The main purpose of the system is to promote competitiveness. This is enabled by allowing the worst-performing teams from the previous season to pick the best players first. However, the system fails in securing players’ rights.
In the process of drafting, players’ involvement is ignored and even a minimal chance of negotiation is deprived. As a fundamental right, every entity is entitled to a free contract according to the Constitution.
However, most major leagues such as the Korean Baseball Organization, Korean Baseball League, K-league and the Korean Volleyball Federation preclude players from signing their own contracts. The problem is aggravated as the system tends to favor the teams with poor records for leveling purpose.
The likely situation is that the most attractive player will be picked first by the most unattractive club regardless of his will.
What would performing in an unwanted team mean to the player? Tarnish his sports career? Not just that.
Major clubs are closely linked to specific provinces. On signing a contract, an athlete may have to move to unfamiliar surroundings. If they could choose on their own volition, the stress would be far less.
The draft system entails a salary cap for players in their first year. However, if the salary was marked by the constitution of the free market representing true value, who would want to refuse? Comparing the free agents’ and newly drafted players’ pay shows how the upper salary limits are inappropriately adjusted.
It is not surprising for free agents to earn several hundred million won. In contrast, rookies pocket 20 to 50 million won annually in exchange for the same effort. The system is only strangling players and violating their rightful pay rate.
The very last barrage is the punishing policy for the malcontents. It works to gag the players who are bold enough to stand up against the draft rules. Once players are drafted by a team, there is no turning back, unless they fulfill one of two conditions.
First, the team voluntarily gives up the right to hold the player. Second, the contract is invalid in the first place. No bail out or second choice is there for the athletes. To discourage players from escaping the team, immaculate rules are enforced.
KBL regulation stipulates that leaving the team will earn the player a 5-year disqualification. The K-League regulation also states “permanent disqualification or long term prohibition from foreign business trips.”
To summarize, three fundamental rights of players are severely violated. And no excuses are acceptable for two reasons. First, the system should provide tremendous benefits which overwhelm the sacrifice of players’ rights in return. Yet, the leagues seem not to have pulled themselves out of the initial crisis since implementing the system. Second, the system should be the last resort, with minimum infringement.
The Korean draft system can’t satisfy this either. Japan operates an amended version of the draft system which facilitates improved circumstances for players.
The draft system greatly offends players’ fundamental rights. Under this condition, the future of both the players and the domestic sports leagues is unpromising.
It is the Korean players who go compete in international events like FIFA World Cup or the Olympics and pledge allegiance to the Korean flag. These players should be bred in Korea with patriotism within our borders.
In order to do this the draft system should find alternatives and cease the bullying of our potential stars.
The writer is a junior at the physical education department at Seoul National University.