Park Ji-sung, Chairman of the Innovation Committee, steps forward to clarify the controversy over "failure to draft meeting minutes," citing "protection of the Football Association" as a factor

*This content was translated by AI.

Park Ji-sung, Chairman of the K-Football Innovation Committee, personally addressed the controversy surrounding the committee's failure to draft meeting minutes for meetings conducted thus far.

Chairman Park Ji-sung explained during a briefing after holding the 4th Meeting of the K-Football Innovation Committee at the Seoul Hall of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 27th: "For innovation to occur, each committee member's remarks are quite important. However, I ultimately felt it was not ideal to record every single remark in a verbatim transcript."

Park (Chairman) added, "Since we wanted to convey our message in one direction as the Innovation Committee intended, we decided to replace individual meeting records with comprehensive briefings delivered by Je Ga (Chairman) after all meetings concluded. Thus, we began by keeping only member records rather than formal minutes."

Earlier, according to NEWS1, when Rebuilding Korea Party lawmaker Kim Jae-won requested submission of meeting minutes, the Innovation Committee responded that "no meeting minutes were drafted." The Innovation Committee operates under a co-chairmanship system led by Yoo Seung-min, President of the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee, and Park Ji-sung, a FIFA sub-committee member. In addition to football stakeholders, Choi Hwi-young, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, serves as a committee member, while Kim Dae-hyun, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, acts as head of the support team.

The issue arises because the Act on Management of Public Records stipulates that minutes, stenographic records, or audio recordings must be prepared for major meetings designated by presidential decree. Furthermore, under Article 18Jo En (Vice Minister) of the Enforcement Decree of this Act, policy deliberation and opinion-adjustment meetings involving officials at the Jo En (Vice Minister) level or higher as members are subject to minute preparation, sparking controversy.

Chairman Park Ji-sung clarified that while no documents exist containing individual committee members' remarks verbatim, documents summarizing the overall content of each meeting are prepared for every session.

He stated, "Although we do not include all committee members' remarks in other documents, we do record discussions on important agenda items and opinions expressed during debates on specific topics. However, there is absolutely no record of which committee member made which remark."

Park Ji-sung further added, "I believe that publicly releasing meeting minutes could itself create another potential source of harm. In reality, the Korea Football Association faces various challenging situations where any statement could become problematic. If disclosed through media, it might exacerbate these issues. Therefore, there is a need to protect the Football Association in such aspects."

Meanwhile, according to Chairman Park Ji-sung, the 4th Meeting of the K-Football Innovation Committee held today discussed expanding the number of electoral college members for the Han Chuk-gu-hyeop (Chairman) election to over 10,000, innovating university league systems and strengthening facility infrastructure as part of youth development strategies, and ensuring the independence of the Korea Football Association's Power Strengthening Committee.

Chairman Park Ji-sung stated, "We reviewed adjusting the Korea Football Association's electoral college based on the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee's election reform plan, reflecting characteristics specific to each sport. The recommended scale will be 10,000 members. We discussed revising regulations for member sports organizations under the Olympic Committee as the legal basis for the reform plan and agreed to finalize the revision process by August."

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*This content was translated by AI.