“THE entire nation is rotten,” said President Lee Myung-bak earlier this year. His frank outburst, in a country where the level of corruption has not fallen nearly as fast as economic and social indicators have climbed, was prompted by civil servants: the number of officials found to have broken the public-service ethics code almost doubled between 2008 and 2010.
The corporate sector is little better. Heads of chaebol (conglomerates) have been locked in a cycle of graft, conviction and the inevitable special pardon. Lee Kun-hee, chairman of Samsung Electronics (who was pardoned in 2009 for tax evasion), recently denounced corruption within part of his empire.
That makes it less surprising that football teams in the national K-League have similar problems. So far this month 46 players have been arrested during an investigation into match-fixing which, prosecutors say, affected the outcomes of at least eight games last year.
“Brokers”—mainly members of criminal gangs, or ex-players—would hand out bribes of perhaps 100m won ($95,000) to encourage scuffed shots or defensive howlers. Bets would then be placed via special lottery tickets that pay out if punters select a winning team as well as a winning ticket. Some suspect that organised-crime groups from China and South-East Asia, where match-fixing is said to be rife, were involved. Two clubs, Daejeon Citizen and Sangju Sangmu Phoenix, hold the dubious distinction of having more than ten players under arrest. Eight have now been given lifetime bans by the league.
According to a businessman involved in football, teams like Daejeon tended to have one ringleader, typically a middling player facing an uncertain retirement. After receiving the brown envelope from his broker, he would divide the money between team-mates in on the ruse. Thanks to South Korea’s culture of age-based hierarchy, it was especially hard for younger players to opt out. The clubby atmosphere discouraged whistle-blowing against higher-ups.
What is more, many football players are relatively hard-up. Some earn just 3m won a month. This makes the temptation to take “reward money” for fumbling a cross harder to resist.
The lack of money is partly a result of the best Korean talent moving to European clubs, which hurts attendances. The K-League says it may respond to the crisis by paying higher pensions. However, it is hard to escape the conclusion implied by President Lee’s comment. With a vibrant economy, South Korea has been promoted to the top division—but is undermined by the own goal of corruption.