The K League decentralization policy in 1995 was a policy of moving

K League K League (Hangul: K리그) is South Korea's professional football league. It includes first division K League 1 and second division K League 2. History Until the 1970s, South Korean football operated two major football leagues, the National ...

clubs located in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the Capital city, capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the North Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea ...

to other regions. It was an effort by the

Government of South Korea The Government of South Korea is the union government of the Republic of Korea, created by the Constitution of South Korea as the executive, legislative and judicial authority of the republic. The president acts as the head of state and is t ...

and the K League Federation to increase popularity of football nationwide before the

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial football world championship for men's national teams organized by FIFA. It was held from 31 May to 30 June 2002 at sites in South Korea ...

for which they bid. In accordance with it, the three K League clubs, Yukong Elephants, Ilhwa Chunma and LG Cheetahs, moved from Seoul to Bucheon, Cheonan and Anyang, respectively, in 1996.

Overview

By 1995, there have been three professional football clubs based in Seoul: Ilhwa Chunma, LG Cheetahs and Yukong Elephants.

Federation wanted to spread football popularity nationally and secure football-specific stadiums for bidding of

. In order to achieve this goal, K League and

Blue House Cheong Wa Dae ( ko, 청와대; Hanja: ; ), also known as the Blue House, is a public park that formerly served as the executive office and official residence of the president of South Korea from 1948 to 2022. It is located in the Jongno distr ...

forced all three clubs in Seoul to move to other cities. The intention was to compensate for the decreased number of home cities under the new system. This policy was not proceeded smoothly with the clubs affected by it, and brought resistances from them. K League Federation announced that if the clubs don't accept the decision, they will be excluded from the league. The federation also decided that one club among them could get the priority to return to Seoul, if it would build a

football-specific stadium Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States and Canada to refer to a sports stadium either purpose-built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multi-p ...

in Seoul. Then all three clubs agreed to move. Once the plan was announced, many city governments hoped to attract these clubs.

Details

Yukong Elephants

At first, Yukong Elephants threatened K League that they would dissolve the club if they have to move out of Seoul. However, they took Bucheon's offer to give a new 20,000-seater Bucheon Stadium and another football-specific stadium including two training fields. They decided to use Seoul Mokdong Stadium as their temporary home ground until the construction of Bucheon Stadium to be completed. They changed their name to ''Bucheon Yukong'' as a part of the policy on 4 January 1996.

Ilhwa Chunma

Cheonan promised Ilhwa Chunma that they would change the Cheonan Oryong Stadium into a football-specific stadium by paying ₩1.2 billion and would build another sports complex. Ilhwa accepted the offer, moved to Cheonan, and changed its name to ''Cheonan Ilhwa Chunma'' as a part of the policy on 29 March 1996.

LG Cheetahs

LG Cheetahs was regarding to move to

Changwon Changwon () is the capital city of Gyeongsangnam-do, on the southeast coast of South Korea. With a population of 1.07 million , Changwon is South Korea's ninth-most populous city. A port city, Changwon is bordered by Masan Bay to the south, ...

as well, but decided to move to Anyang due to the popularity of football in the region and the local characteristics. They changed their name to ''Anyang LG Cheetahs'' as a part of the policy on 26 April 1996.

Aftermath

K League started perfect "home and away system" from 1996 after all clubs got their own stadiums as a result. After the 2002 FIFA World Cup,

Korea Football Association The Korea Football Association () is the governing body of football and futsal within South Korea. It sanctions professional, semi-professional and amateur football in South Korea. Founded in 1933, the governing body became affiliated with F ...

needed to pay

Seoul Metropolitan Government The Seoul Metropolitan Government is a local government of Seoul, South Korea. The mayor is elected to a four-year term by the citizens of Seoul and is responsible for the administration of the city government. The Seoul Metropolitan Government d ...

₩25 billion as their share of the construction of Seoul World Cup Stadium. KFA wanted to find a new club in Seoul and let the club to pay the whole share, but it didn't happen. Seoul Metropolitan Government understood that potential investment on a new Seoul club had not made due to the amount of the share, they agreed to cut ₩10 billion in the way of sponsoring the new team with the same amount of money. Also, KFA agreed to pay ₩10 billion of their share to reduce the burden to a new Seoul club, leaving only ₩5 billion to pay. In the meantime, Anyang LG Cheetahs declared their interest in moving to Seoul and Seoul Metropolitan Government welcomed it, though KFA prioritized the foundation of a new club. But many candidate companies (including

KT Corporation KT Corporation ( Hangul: 주식회사 케이티), formerly Korea Telecom, is a South Korean telecommunications company. KT is the second-largest wireless carrier in South Korea, with 16.493 million subscribers as of Q4 2017. The formerly full ...

and Kumho Asiana Group), which received proposal from KFA and K League, refused to found a new Seoul-based club. On 6 February 2004, K League Federation officially allowed the existing K League club's move to Seoul and sent relocation proposal to all K League clubs. KFA declared that if an existing club wants to move to Seoul, they need to pay ₩15 billion, due to the KFA's ₩10 billion offer was only under the condition of foundation of a new club. A few days later, however, KFA cut the share to pay to a half, ₩7.5 billion, with a prospect of a new Seoul club in future to pay the other half.

Busan I'Cons Busan IPark ( ko, 부산 아이파크) is a South Korean professional football club based in Busan that competes in K League 2, the second tier of the South Korean football pyramid. Its current home ground is Busan Gudeok Stadium. The club was on ...

also had declared their interest in being a new Seoul club, but later retreated their interest. Anyang LG Cheetahs finally returned to Seoul on 10 March 2004.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Decentralization Policy In K League K League Football in Seoul Sport in Seoul Seongnam FC FC Seoul Jeju United FC Sports team relocations