After seeing his side crash out of the World Cup, Hyong Mung-bo has been enduring harsh treatment in his native South Korea as fans and even the government turn against the manager.
Despite opening their World Cup campaign with a dramatic win over Czechia, South Korea went on to lose their next two group games and ultimately didn’t do enough to qualify for the next round as one of the top eight third-placed teams.
That’s disappointing for the staff, players, and the country of South Korea, of course. But, for the manager Hyong Mung-bo, it’s safe to say he has taken the brunt of the blame for the failure.
South Korea president wants Hyong Mung-bo to be investigated for World Cup failure
Hyong has resigned from his post as South Korea manager now, saying: “It was not an easy decision for me to take this role, but once I took it, I thought about nothing else except being responsible until the very last moment.”
That level of commitment hasn’t stopped him from being on the wrong end of some pretty brutal treatment back home.
First, images emerging from South Korea revealed the former manager had been banned from entering convenience stores in his homeland. Clearly, the everyday citizen wasn’t happy, with the lack of game time for Heung-min Son thought to be the key issue.
In the wake of the defeat to South Africa in the final group match, Hyong spoke to the press but fans back in South Korea have been editing the videos to blur his face, so they don’t have to see him any longer.
More severe still is the fact that, according to The Athletic, Hyong may now be under investigation from the South Korean government for how his team performed at the World Cup.
The country’s president Lee Jae Myung wants the sports ministry in South Korea to dig deeper into the situation and find out why Hyong was hired in the first place. Myung is said to be “utterly baffled” by the World Cup showing from South Korea and is keen to “push forward with reforms” to the sporting setup in his country to “ensure such a thing never happens again.”
The sports ministry suggested (via Reuters) the interview process that led to Hyong’s appointment may not have been “reasonable” and that the Korean Football Association (KFA) may even have “broken its own rules”. The KFA denied any wrongdoing but are yet to comment on the latest developments.
