People Power Party Exposes Sports World Corruption, Including Shooting Federation

Korean shooting achieved its best results ever at the last Paris Olympics, with 3 golds and 3 silvers. However, the shooting federation has not yet paid out the 315 million won in prize money to the athletes and coaching staff. According to the shooting federation regulations, the Olympic gold medal prize money is 50 million won for the athlete and 25 million won for the coaching staff, and the silver medal prize money is 20 million won for the athlete and 10 million won for the coaching staff.

Rep. Jin Jong-oh of the People Power Party, a former Olympic shooting gold medalist, held a press conference to disclose some of the “70 or so reports of corruption in the sports world,” including this issue. He said that various suspicions were raised in 13 sports, including badminton, taekwondo, ice skating, swimming, and soccer, and that they were being investigated.

Rep. Jin claimed that former Korea Shooting Federation Chairman Shin Myeong-ju suddenly resigned early last month, only two months after taking office, and had not paid the sponsorship (300 million won) that he had promised to give when he took office. He also stated that 378.7 million won (80 cases) in prize money for various athletes had not been paid. Additionally, performance-based pay was paid to employees under these circumstances.

Graphics = Kim Sung-kyu

The problem is that former Chairman Shin is not providing sponsorship money and is causing problems with the payment of prize money, etc. The Shooting Federation, which has an annual budget of 5.6 billion won, had planned to use former Chairman Shin’s sponsorship money for prize money, etc.

The whistleblower center received a report that 32 million won in performance bonuses were paid to 9 Federation employees early this year for their contribution to hosting the World Junior Shooting Championships and Asian Shooting Championships held in Korea last year. This has raised concerns that while athletes are not receiving prize money, employees are receiving performance bonuses.

The Shooting Federation said that the Olympic medalist prize money was originally planned to be paid at the ‘Shooters’ Night’ event in December, and that former Chairman Shin promised to sell his real estate to add some of the prize money. However, if former Chairman Shin does not keep his promise, they will pay the prize money even if it means using the Federation Shooting Promotion Fund (1.65 billion won).

Rep. Jin also mentioned that the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation did not properly announce the new ‘failure’ criteria that were newly established during the process of selecting candidates for cycling athletes last year, resulting in three people being unfairly disqualified.

Additionally, there were suspicions that former Chairman Jeong Mo of the Korea Sports Council in Canada embezzled part of the airfare and other subsidies (7 million won) that were supposed to be paid to 54 participants in the 2022 National Sports Festival.

There was also a report that a group of wrestlers from a middle school in Hwacheon-gun, Gangwon-do, were drafted to a track and field competition ahead of their final exams, and as a result, six out of the eight wrestlers failed to meet the minimum academic requirements for the final exams and were suspended from wrestling competitions for six months.