'Promise to Restore Fairness and Trust' Korea Professional Football Referee Council Pushes to Establish 'Voluntary Reporting and Internal Whistleblowing System'... Led by Legal Experts

*This content was translated by AI.

The Korea Professional Football Referee Council has launched efforts to establish a voluntary reporting and internal whistleblowing system to strengthen the fairness and transparency of professional football referees and regain the trust of soccer fans.

On the 18th, the Korea Professional Football Referee Council announced that it will set up a self-correction system that receives facts, opinions, and materials related to refereeing through professional and systematic procedures, verifies objective factual relationships, conducts legal reviews, and leads to substantive institutional improvements and prevention of recurrence.

This project will proceed with an objective structure led by legal experts and involving external law firms. Park Eun-jeong, a director who is also a lawyer, will oversee operations, while the law firm Young will be responsible for operating the professional intake channel, verifying facts, and conducting legal reviews. The council will support the smooth operation of procedures and take on the role of promoting reform plans through consultations with relevant institutional investors and related parties regarding identified institutional and operational improvements.

The main areas for reporting are broadly categorized into three: 'voluntary reporting' regarding violations of laws or regulations or inappropriate conduct in which one is directly or indirectly involved; 'reporting of victimization or improper acts' concerning facts where one has received unfair demands, pressure, or disadvantages; and 'reporting of irregularities or misconduct' alerting to actions that may undermine fairness and transparency, such as improper interference or pressure related to referee operations, evaluations, promotions, assignments, or match rulings.

During the intake process, the timing and location of incidents, relevant matches and tournaments, involved parties, and specific factual relationships will be closely verified. Additionally, legally obtained materials such as messages, emails, recordings, and financial transaction records will also be accepted. The council is currently establishing protection standards for reporters' identities and personal information by comprehensively considering the need to protect their rights and interests and the necessity of fact verification; official guidelines will be provided when the dedicated channel opens.

This project proceeds based on objective facts, materials, and procedures without pre-assuming responsibility for specific individuals or incidents. The plan is to continuously operate a structure leading from 'fact verification → legal review → identification of improvement items → institutional improvement and prevention of recurrence,' settling it as a substantive self-correction system beyond simply opening a channel.

Park Eun-jeong, the director overseeing the project, stated through the council, "For K-League to be loved, the belief that judgments made on the field are fair is paramount." She added, "Rather than dismissing suspicions or allegations, it is essential to verify accurate factual relationships and review necessary measures. We will carefully oversee this process to ensure objective fact verification and responsible improvements are carried out."

She further expressed hope that "by objectively organizing factual relationships, reviewing necessary measures, and establishing transparent standards to prevent similar issues from recurring, this project will serve as a turning point."

The Korea Professional Football Referee Council plans to separately issue official guidelines on the scope of reporting and whistleblowing targets, intake methods, operational period, and processing procedures once detailed operating standards and the dedicated intake channel are finalized.

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*This content was translated by AI.