![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/south-korea-2014-world-cup.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Alexandre Schneider\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The KFA has apologized for bribing refs with escort services<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Korea Football Association has issued a public apology after it was reported that it had bribed referees with escort services in the early 2010s. South Korea has qualified for 11 straight World Cups since 1986.<\/p>\n
According to a government report that was recently made public, the Korea Football Association (KFA) spent approximately $3,950 (5.6 million Korean won) on sexual services for foreign referees on eight separate occasions surrounding World Cup<\/a> and Olympic qualifying matches between 2011 and 2012.<\/p>\n The Korea Football Association apologized after a 2016 government report revealed it paid for sexual services for international referees during 2011-2012 qualifying matches<\/p>\n According to the report, KFA staff arranged visits to massage parlors that provided sexual services for international referees, with the expenses disguised in official accounting records as post-match drinks or standard massages. The falsified expense claims were used to conceal the true nature of the payments from official records.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a statement published on its website Saturday, the KFA said it \u2018deeply apologizes for the concern caused by various issues, ranging from a parliamentary hearing and a search and seizure operation to media reports about events from over a decade ago that many members of the association were unaware of,\u2019 adding that \u2018such inappropriate conduct or misuse of corporate cards are absolutely not occurring at present.’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn one example listed in the government report, South Korea\u2019s national team played Oman on September 21, 2011 \u2013 competing for a spot in the 2012 London Olympics. In the early hours of the following morning, four referees who officiated the match were allegedly taken to a massage parlor by the KFA, which spent 760,000 Korean won ($536).\u201d [via\u00a0CNN<\/a>]<\/p>\n The KFA added in its apology that the practices ended in 2013 following the introduction of a \u201cclean card system\u201d and the hiring of external liaison officers to manage relationships with visiting referees.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a tumultuous summer for South Korean football following the national team\u2019s group-stage exit at the 2026 World Cup, sparking subsequent controversies over the appointment of manager Hong Myung-bo.<\/p>\n Myung-bo resigned on June 28, the day after South Korea\u2019s group-stage elimination from the 2026 World Cup following losses to Mexico and South Africa. South Korea\u2019s president then publicly called Hong \u201cincapable\u201d and ordered a government investigation into both the team\u2019s performance and the process by which Hong was hired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexandre Schneider\/Getty Images The KFA has apologized for bribing refs with escort services \u00a0 The Korea Football Association…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,84,33,5968],"class_list":["post-118224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-korea","tag-soccer","tag-south-korea","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}