The Seoul Football Association is embroiled in legal disputes. Controversy arose as suspicions of irregularities during the association president election held in December last year emerged later. Ultimately, calls have grown for system reforms.
A ran for the Seoul Football Association president election last year. After losing, he filed a lawsuit at the Seoul Western District Court to nullify the election and cancel the results.
His argument is that some voters colluded with a specific candidate to commit electoral fraud by stamping ballots multiple times or by marking them in specific locations, such as the corners of the voting area.
A noted that the unexpectedly marked ballots reached 26 out of a total of 64 votes (40.6%), and coincidentally, all of these votes supported the current president, candidate B.
Candidate B was elected in the election held in December last year, receiving 47 votes, easily surpassing the other two candidates (who received 9 votes and 8 votes, respectively). The votes criticized for their 'peculiar marking method' constituted 55.3% of B's total votes.
A's legal representative regarding the nullification lawsuit stated, 'We have secured a substantial amount of evidence that raises suspicions that voters were coerced to vote primarily for a specific candidate, and the voting methods varied by occupation to identify so-called “traitors,” and submitted this evidence to the court.' They also emphasized, 'Whether there will be a rerun of the election is a later issue. In a situation where the principle of anonymous secret voting, which can be considered a core principle of elections, is suspected to have been undermined, isn't it likely that the same conclusion will result even if the election is held again?' A's side is also claiming that 'there have been indications that a senior official from the Seoul Football Association participated in the election management committee, which should be composed of neutral figures, impacting the election.'
The Korea Football Association and the Korea Sports Council are also monitoring the progress of A's lawsuit.
A representative from the Korea Sports Council noted, 'Since the process of determining the fairness of the election went directly to court without passing through the deliberation systems of the sports community, such as the Sports Fairness Committee or Sports Ethics Center, it seems there is no room for intervention at the current stage. However, as the council is working on improvements related to sports organization elections, it will also reference the progress and results of the lawsuit.'
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