Nat'l football body to be 'in communication' with FIFA over local club's ban

Kim Seung-hee, new executive director of the Korea Football Association (KFA), speaks during a press conference at the KFA House in Seoul, May 21. Yonhap

A senior Korean football executive said Wednesday the sport's national governing body will be in touch with FIFA over a ban on a local club that came to light last week.

In his introductory press conference, Kim Seung-hee, executive director of the Korea Football Association (KFA), addressed FIFA's registration ban on the K League 1 club Gwangju FC.

FIFA imposed the penalty on Gwangju FC on Dec. 17, 2024, after the club failed to pay $3,000 in solidarity contributions related to their signing of forward Jasir Asani from Albania. The fee would have been distributed to the player's former clubs from his age 12 to 23.

Unaware of FIFA's ban on signing new players, Gwangju acquired about a dozen players last winter, and have played 14 matches in the K League 1 and two more matches in the Korea Cup tournament this year. They have also competed at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League Elite tournament.

After the ban was belatedly revealed last week, other K League 1 clubs have argued that all Gwangju matches this season should be declared 3-0 losses for the offending team because they had fielded ineligible players. Pohang Steelers, after losing to Gwangju 1-0 on Sunday, lodged a complaint with the K League office Monday.

Gwangju FC have said they failed to make the payment because an employee in charge went on leave in September 2024 without sharing necessary information with coworkers.

Gwangju FC also didn't learn of the ban until recently because the KFA had forwarded a FIFA email detailing the penalty to the employee on leave and it wasn't immediately shared with other team staff.

The Korea Professional Football League (K League) was not made aware of the ban, either, because the KFA had not cc'd the FIFA email to the K League, according to a league official.

Against this backdrop, Kim said Wednesday he will try to prevent a recurrence.

"We will be in communication with FIFA and the AFC," he said. "We will try to get to the bottom of the problem. We will have discussions with the K League and make sure something like this never happens again."

FIFA established "Clearing House" in October 2018 to centralize and automate payments between related clubs and to promote financial transparency, and it began its operations in November 2022.

Kim said Korea and "some other nations" are still familiarizing themselves with the new system.

The KFA had stated Friday that it would be "excessive" to rule new Gwangju players ineligible this season based on "an incident that occurred due to an unintentional administrative mistake."

Further on the KFA's stance, Kim said the national body had "carefully considered" the stability of the K League's operations.

"We didn't think it was appropriate to let players' hard work go for naught just because of some clerical errors," Kim said. "We prioritized the stability of the K League and noted that there was no intention (on Gwangju FC's part). We have sent a letter to FIFA explaining the situation based on facts."