By Kang Seung-woo
Staff Reporter
Lee Won-jae of the Suwon BlueWings, Woo Sung-yong of the Ulsan Tigers, Kim Sang-shik of Seongnam Chunma and Lee Dong-gook of Middlesbrough were each handed one-year suspensions from the Korean national football team due to their drinking during the Asian Cup in July.
But there is unexpectedly no ban on them playing in the Korea Professional Football League (K-League).
The Korea Football Association (KFA) held a meeting Friday morning and reached a decision to impose the harsh punishments after about a four-hour discussion.
Along with the suspension, Lee, 34, who initiated the scandal, received a three-year ban from KFA-organized competition and an 80-hour social service order.
The rest of the punished players were imposed with a two-year ban from KFA-organized competition and 40 hours of service.
The punishments will be applied to Lee, who now plays in the English Premier League (EPL), when he returns to the domestic league.
In addition, the football governing body issued a warning to assistant and goalkeeper coaches Hong Myung-bo and Marco Antonio Alvarez Ferreira.
With the discipline effective as of Friday, the punished players will be disqualified from the national team until Nov. 1, 2008, and they will not be able to play in the FA Cup and international friendly matches.
``Players who broke away from a hotel and boozed during an important competition must be punished,'' KFA vice president Lee Kap-jin said.
He also mentioned they can play in the K-League.
``The national team is responsible for managing national athletes,'' he said. ``It is not associated with their current teams. We tried to minimize damages to the clubs.
``The manager has to take care of a misconduct of his player, but as Pim Verbeek resigned, coaches received warnings.''