Playing cards with the national soccer team's money

Players of the national team and staff of the Korea Football Association are known to have played cards with money at a training camp in the United Arab Emirates ahead of the 2023 Asian Cup. The association said it was not gambling but betting.

"If there is a tournament with a long call-up period, such as the Asian Cup, there is a lounge for the team," an association official said in a telephone interview with Star News on Sunday. "The lounge has karaoke rooms, board games and cards to accommodate players so that they can take a break." Regarding the controversy over players' gambling-like card games, the association said, "Players usually place bets by hitting goalposts and water bottles. This card game is not a gamble, but a level of betting."

In addition, when asked if there was such a bet during the Asian Cup, an official from the association replied, "There was no such bet."

According to the soccer community on the day, some players of the Asian Cup national team and the Korea Football Association KFA bet their money on playing a card game at the Abu Dhabi Warfare Training Center in the United Arab Emirates before the event. A KFA source refuted the claim, saying, "It was true that we played the card game, but it was as if we were betting."

In this regard, the Korea Football Association also announced a statement of its position, saying, "We explain about an article reported in the media that the team gambled cards during the Asian Cup preparation period."

The Korea Football Association said, "We have set up and operated a resting room so that players can freely spend their leisure time in their accommodation when participating in long-term tournaments World Cup, Asian Cup, etc.. In this tournament, the resting room was equipped with cards, Go, board games, yutnori, video game consoles, and karaoke equipment. Players could find and use it when they needed it," he explained.

The Korea Football Association also said, "In many cases, the team is operated with a small amount of betting, such as betting on the goalposts at the training site or paying for drinks when playing board games and video games in the lounge," and added, "I tell you that it is completely different from gambling."

Regarding the participation of the Korea Football Association staff in the card game, he said, "The facility can only be used by players, but we regret that the staff was in the space together. Regarding the part where the support staff played cards with the players in the lounge, the investigation found it to be true and judged it as an inappropriate behavior."

"At the time of the call-up for the Asian Cup, the coach explicitly delivered internal guidelines to all staff members to minimize contact with the players and allow the players to focus on the tournament as much as possible," he said. "However, the person concerned was raised internally because of inappropriate business operations as the team leader, such as violating the internal guidelines of the national team, and the results of the investigation have also been confirmed."

The Korea Football Association held a personnel committee meeting on the 20th of last month to dismiss the employee from the position and conducted several investigations on the person concerned and the employees around them. Based on the results, the committee will hold a personnel meeting later to take disciplinary action against the person concerned.

Meanwhile, the Korean national soccer team failed to advance to the semifinals at the Qatar Asian Cup, which ended last month. The team challenged with a dream of becoming the top Asian player in 64 years since winning the championship in 1960, but failed to achieve the dream in the previous championship. Analysts say that the team is armed with players who play in the European big leagues, including "captain" Son Heung-min Tottenham, Lee Kang-in Paris Saint-Germain, Kim Min-jae Bayern Munich, and Hwang Hee-chan Wolverhampton, but it was satisfied with advancing to the semifinals.

On the eve of the semifinals of the tournament, the "table tennis gate" incident, in which Son Heung-min and Lee Kang-in had a physical conflict, was known, which shocked soccer fans.

In the end, former coach Jurgen Klinsmann was dismissed last month after various controversies such as poor performance. Hwang Sun-hong, head coach of the U-23 national team, temporarily took the helm as a firefighter. He will lead Thailand in the second round of Asian qualifiers for the 2026 North-Central America World Cup, which will take place this month. The third round of the second round of qualifiers will be held at the Seoul World Cup Stadium on the 21st. The fourth round, which will be held on the 26th, will be held at Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.

Korea, which was included in Group C in the second qualifying round for the North-China-U.S. World Cup, is ranking first in the group with all two wins. If Korea wins both games, it will effectively confirm its advance to the final qualifying round. Thailand is ranking second in the group with one win and one loss three points. 토토사이트 추천