Former national football team head coach Hong Myung-bo, right, answers lawmakers' questions while former Korea Football Association (KFA) President Chung Mong-gyu listens during a parliamentary hearing on alleged irregularities involving the KFA at the National Assembly in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap
Hong Myung-bo’s second spell in charge of Korea’s national team started amid jeers and boos at Seoul World Cup Stadium in September 2024. It ended with his resignation in late June and what followed was a reckoning just a few kilometers down the Han River at the National Assembly building in Yeouido. As a head coach, you know something has gone wrong on the football field when you end up in parliament.
What is going to happen in this crazy summer of Korean football? In June, there was a trip to Mexico to play in the World Cup and it went badly with early elimination. Other teams suffered the same fate but nowhere else was the head coach’s next appearance at a parliamentary session as lawmakers on the National Assembly's sports committee fired questions at him.
It may well be the last public appearance for Hong. Back then, after the 2002 World Cup, he was a genuine legend. He was the captain of the team that reached the last four and stepped down from international football after four tournaments. Now, he stepped down from football in general, as one of the least popular people in the country.
