When you think of Korea, you might think of kimchi, the DMZ and eating dogs. That’s all I knew about the place before I came to this little pocket in the Far East. But as I have found out over the past three years, there is a lot more to this peninsula than meets the eye.
My only experience of Koreans before I ventured east was when Dick Advocaat had brought his “Taegeuk Jeonsa” team to Murray Park to train. I drove past the gates of the Milngavie complex in the car and a small band of supporters had gathered at the gates, wearing their red tops, waving their Korean flags and chanting the names of their heroes. I was surprised at how animated they were, considering they couldn’t even see the team train from the gates. But it was a glimpse into how serious they take their sport, and even more, how patriotic they are. And who can blame them? Their country has been invaded, occupied, enslaved, invaded again and the civilians have been split apart from their families in the north. And when the Japanese colonized the peninsula in the early 1900s, the country was more or less flattened. All their national palaces and places of interest were destroyed or stolen by the occupying Japanese forces. Korea has come a long way since then, and like us, they use their sport to vent their frustrations and show their pride.
Park Ji-Sung may just be an Asian Man United player to us, but to the Koreans, he is a real life hero. He has a road named after him in his native Suwon; his face (not his best feature) advertises umpteen different products on TV; he is followed by a mass of photographers wherever he goes and he has just opened a football school of excellence in Seoul. But, he isn’t the only person to get it right when it comes to branding in Korea. David Beckham is held in similar esteem. He rarely visits the country, but his face also advertises products I’ve never even heard of. The champion of branding has to be Park’s club, Manchester United. On my last visit to Seoul, I discovered that a new Manchester United restaurant is being built, and in the numerous sporting good shops, Manchester United merchandise of all shapes and sizes can be purchased. It is fair to say, the Koreans are nuts about the Red Devils - possibly more than some of the fans that attend Old Trafford week in, week out. The fact that you get to see more Premiership games live here than you do back home helps the awareness of the brand no end. Even my boss, after being shown their online shop, bought around 700 dollars worth of gear (which we had to cart back over from the UK). The teams of the Korean National League are run in a similar, mass-publicised fashion.
Korea’s K-League was started in 1983 and now consists of 15 teams, most of them owned by large corporations, such as Samsung and Hyundai. These corporations use the league as excellent PR, as if they’d really need it over here anyway. The country is more or less monopolized by 5 or 6 brands. Samsung, Hyundai (pronounced hyeon-dae, as I have found out after years of calling it “hai-un-die), LG, Lotte and Kia have sponsorship deals everywhere. Apartments are named after them, small corner stores copy their name to seem more cosmopolitan, and their adverts are constantly on TV. Samsung even has a subway station named after it. Korea is a utopia for corporations.
Both baseball and football are run as a sporting wing for and of their owners. Everything to do with the club has the brand in place. And in return, these companies plough money into the teams to try and outdo each other. Not forgetting the six teams which are not owned by private companies. These more-rural teams have their local regional councils behind the scenes, pulling the strings. Can you imagine the Gers being owned by Glasgow City Council?
At grassroots level, Korea has institutes that develop future footballers. Instead of a team taking kids on very early, the kids stay at a sport-based boarding school. They still get all their regular subjects, but they learn about and play football every spare minute they get. This is funded by the kids’ families; which is no different to the regular school system here. The sporting schools cost around £500 per calendar month.
The quality of player being produced is slowly getting better with each passing year. The national side, already one of the best in Asia, has already qualified for the next World Cup. With the increase in Koreans being transferred to European sides, and more money being invested in the future of the game, things look very rosy indeed for Korea.
Kim Jung Il
Dear Leader of the Juche Loyal.