Choi Cheol-won, the author of the so-called'match-price assault', is emerging as the'hot potato' in the domestic sports industry.
After assaulting a freight vehicle driver in 2010, Choi received a three-year probation in prison for one year and six months in prison at an appeal trial in April of the following year on charges of handing over 20 million won, saying that it was'measured'.
He earned public resentment enough to be used as the subject of the movie'Veteran', and on December 17th, last year, he was elected as the next president of the Korea Ice Hockey Association.
This is because the criticism was infested with the fact that Choi Cheol-won was overwhelmingly elected as the head of a sports organization whose life is fair play.
The Korean Sports Association is scheduled to hold a board of directors on the 4th to make a final decision on whether to approve Choi's chairmanship.
There is a high possibility that approval will be rejected due to the current atmosphere of the athletic meet.
This is because there can be no sharp point other than'rejection' if we take into account the public anger against the atrocities of people with money and the backlash from the politicians.
In politics, the so-called'Choi Cheol-won Ban Act' was recently proposed.
The goal of the bill is to prevent people who have been criminally punished for anti-social and unethical behaviors from becoming heads of sports organizations in the future.
However, the person who led this bill was Ahn Min-seok and Democratic Party member.
For a long time in the domestic sports field, Lee Gi-heung and the current Korea Sports Council have been established, so if the elected Choi Cheol-won is approved as the chairman, it is obvious to see the fire that the recent re-election of Chairman Lee Gi-heung and the athletic meet will be offensive.
If the Korea Sports Association refuses to approve as expected, the option for Choi Cheol-won is to voluntarily resign or go to lawsuit.
Choi inquired with four leading law firms in Korea for candidate registration, and as a result, he received a voter interpretation that there was no reason for disqualification.
Even if the athletic meet concludes with a refusal to approve, there is still a possibility of winning the court if CEO Choi goes to lawsuit.
As Choi Cheol-won becomes the center of the controversy, the person who is summoned again is Choi Cheol-Wol's cousin, the chairman of SK Group, Choi Tae-won.
Chairman Tae-won Choi was sentenced to three years in prison and five years probation in an appeal in May 2008 for SK Global's fraudulent accounting and internal transaction charges of 1.5 trillion won.
Chairman Tae-won Choi took office as the president of the Korea Handball Association in December of that year, seven months after his sentence was confirmed in the Supreme Court, but there was no rejection of approval by the Korea Sports Association.
In February 2014, he was sentenced to four years in prison for embezzlement of 45 billion won, and was amended and reinstated in August 2015.The following year, he was elected as the president of the Korea Handball Association again in July 2016, but the Korea Sports Association did not reject approval.
After taking charge of the Handball Association, Chairman Choi built the SK Handball Stadium in Olympic Park in Songpa-gu, Seoul in 2011, and founded SK Hawks (male) and SK Sugar Gliders (female) when the men's Korosawa and the women's Yongin City Hall were disbanded.
In addition, we have continuously invested more than KRW 100 billion in the development of handball by establishing a handball development foundation to foster youth, operating a handball academy, and supporting the strengthening of the national team's competitiveness.
If you simply compare the sentences between Choi Tae-won and Choi Cheol-won, Chairman Tae-won Choi is much heavier.
In addition, Choi Tae-won appeared as the head of a sports team seven months after the sentence was confirmed, but Choi Cheol-won was running for almost 10 years.
However, in the athletic world, the gaze of the two people is different.
From Choi Cheol-won's point of view, this may be considered unfair.
In this regard, an official of the Korean Sports Association said, “It is true that both of them were convicted.
However, the guilt is very different.
In the case of Choi Cheol-won, he abused the power of money and hit a good citizen with a baseball bat.
Which people would tolerate this?
If Cheol-won Choi takes office, I believe that he will provide a lot of support for the development of ice hockey in Korea, but if the sports club approves his election, it will be difficult to deal with the enormous criticism from various fields.”
However, Mr. A, from the domestic sports field, made a different voice.
“Choi Cheol-won's brutal assault deserves criticism, but it has already passed 10 years.
Just as Chairman Choi Tae-won did a big job for the development of handball after being convicted, Choi Cheol-won must give him an opportunity to make up for his fault.
I think it's too harsh to say that a person who has committed a sin once cannot forever be placed in a major position.
The ice hockey players who won Choi with a big difference in votes made such a decision after hard work.
Mr. Choi received overwhelming support with his bold pledges such as expanding the ice hockey facility, which is a long-awaited business for ice hockey in Korea, operating a 1 company 1 junior high school club team, operating a league, and establishing an unemployment team.
He stressed that if the sports club refuses to approve for fear of criticism, the damage will be suffered by ice hockey.”
So, what is the reason for the Korean Sports Association to reject Choi's approval?
Article 26 (Reasons for Disqualification of Officers) of the Korean Sports Association's Article 26 (Reasons for Disqualification of Executives) Paragraph 12 is not subject to “social inquiries, and other unsuitable grounds such as similar acts that fall under the reasons for disqualification of executives, although no disciplinary action has been taken It is specified as “a person with”.
In other words, there is a reason for disqualification from being an executive of a sports organization to a person who has caused'social controversy'.
This provision was newly added in August 2017, and so far, there has never been a case where the Korea Sports Association has refused to approve the head of a sports team because of'social controversy'.
In addition, there is no clear definition of the concept of'social controversy', and there are no specific standards on how much social controversy must be raised to be the reason for disqualification of executives.
In the end, there is a strong possibility that Choi's approval will be rejected by the so-called'political judgment' of the Korean Sports Association.
This is because Choi Cheol-won's'Match Price Assault' and'Jaebeol Gapjil' touched the'National Affairs Law', which is sometimes scarier than the Constitution.
If the Korea Sports Association refuses to approve it, attention is paid to whether Choi will go to court or voluntarily resign, and what choice he will make.
(Photo = Yonhap News)