“The Korean Football Association (KFA) doesn’t want to do the FA Cup.”
This is a stinging comment from several longtime K League officials. On Nov. 16, the KFA announced a new schedule for the FA Cup semifinals and final. The semifinals will be played on November 1, and the final, which is scheduled to be played home and away, will be played in four days.
This year’s FA Cup semifinals were a mess. Two games were scheduled for September 9, but Jeonbuk Hyundai and Incheon United were canceled due to the jamboree and Jeju United and Pohang Steelers were postponed due to a typhoon. It’s a tricky situation for teams that are juggling the K League with the Asian Football Confederation Champions League (ACL). The immediate challenge was to find a date for the semifinals. Jeju and Pohang took advantage of the A-Match break in September to prepare. There was an understanding that not many players would be called up to the national team.
The problem is that Jeonbuk and Incheon are the biggest victims of the jamboree. Jeonbuk opposed a September date due to the number of players on the A team, while Incheon wanted a September date due to their tight schedule at the end of August. In the end, with no consensus, the KFA came up with a drastic solution: changing the format of the final midway through the competition. Article 12 of the FA Cup Competition Regulations states, “In the case of the final, the final may be played in a single game according to the match schedule.
The KFA’s decision was met with a collective sigh from K League officials, especially the four semifinalists. In the case of Jeju and Pohang, they were supposed to have agreed to it in September at an association meeting, but were instead forced to play in November without even leaving the meeting. An embarrassing conclusion for both teams.
The KFA is said to have cited the need to play both semifinal matches on the same day, but if that’s the case, why did the game go to kickoff on September 9?
Jeonbuk and Incheon also didn’t expect the decision. The original idea reportedly came from a suggestion made by one of the teams during a meeting between the two. The team proposed to play the semifinals on November 1, the first leg of the final on November 4, and the second leg in December, but the KFA came up with the unexpected conclusion of reducing the final to one game.
The post-decision response was equally bizarre. In its initial press release, the KFA stated that the schedule was “adopted by consensus of all four clubs,” but later amended it to say, “The schedule was finalized and announced to the clubs. “The title sponsor, Hana Bank, has also agreed to the schedule” was changed to “Hana Bank has been asked for its understanding”. This shows that communication was not smooth. 먹튀검증
In a series of steps, the KFA has degraded its own FA Cup authority. Most observers agree that the decision to blow the final, the biggest event in the K League, with an average attendance of 10,000, is an unimaginable “cliffhanger” administration.
Covering the FA Cup, it’s not uncommon to find instances of minor mismanagement, from basic mistakes in kit preparation to the most trivial of incidents, which can have a detrimental effect on a match. There have even been instances where delivery motorcycles have appeared on the track during matches. This is why K
