South Korea includes a drunk driving convict on its soccer team...what's the association's explanation?

▲이상민 선수. 출처=성남 FC 홈페이지 캡처

Defender Lee Sang-min (Seongnam), who was controversially named to the national team for this year's Hangzhou Asian Games despite having a drunk driving conviction, has been removed from the Asian Games squad.

"We have decided to exclude Lee Sang-min from the national football team for the Hangzhou Asian Games 2023," the Korea Football Association said on Monday. "We humbly acknowledge that we selected a player who did not meet the rules of the national football team during the selection process for the Asian Games, which was announced on the 14th, and promise to do our best to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future by overhauling the administrative system."

"The player was initially selected for the U-22 National Team in September 2021 and had previously been selected for the U-23 and U-24 National Teams on three separate occasions. The player was caught driving under the influence of alcohol in May 2020 and was sentenced to a fine of KRW 5 million on August 5 of that year for violating the Road Traffic Act."

Article 17 of the KFA's National Football Team Regulations states that "a person who has been sentenced to a fine of more than 5 million won for an act related to driving under the influence of alcohol, and the sentence has not been finalized for three years, is ineligible to represent the national team. According to the regulation, the association explained that the player cannot be selected for the national team until Aug. 4, 2023.

The federation said, "Lee Sang-min has been playing in the K League 2 since 2020 and was disciplined by the Korean Football Association for driving under the influence of alcohol and was subsequently selected for the age group national team. Compared to players in the K League 1 or the A National Team, neither league news nor player-related information is relatively well known to the outside world, so we were unable to properly review the relevant regulations in relation to this fact at the time of his first selection in 2021. In this regard, we must admit that the association was inexperienced in handling the relevant procedures," the statement said.

"We recognize our administrative inexperience and problems and will take measures to prevent recurrence. We will take various measures such as checking the disciplinary history before finalizing the roster or referring to the cases of overseas countries to make it possible to 'submit a pledge' or check the history of problems when providing a standard contract by the professional football league," the association said, promising to pay more attention to the selection and operation of players in the future.

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