“We will appoint a new official head coach by mid-May at the latest,” said Chung Jung-sung (pictured), chairman of the Korea Football Association’s Power Enhancement Committee, at a briefing last month on the search process. The national team is scheduled to play its second North America 2026 World Cup qualifier away to Singapore on June 6.
However, based on the current situation, it seems unlikely that a full-time coach will be named by May.
There are local reports that former FC Seoul coach Séréon Guinness, who has expressed strong interest in the job, 먹튀검증 could return to his former club Besiktas (Turkiye).
The current French women’s national team coach, Hervé Renard, who led Saudi Arabia to an upset over eventual champions Argentina in the group stage at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, has reportedly not even been interviewed.
Salary is also a stumbling block. Former Leeds United (England) manager Jesse Massa was paid £3.5 million at Leeds. That’s more than double what his predecessor, Jürgen Klinsmann, was paid, $2.2 million. Massey is also being considered for the job of coach of North American World Cup co-hosts Canada.
Other candidates include former Wolverhampton (England) coach Bruno Raj, who was paid £1.5 million, and Mallorca (Spain) coach Javier Aguirre, who was paid about 2.5 billion won (US$2.5 million) when he took charge of the Japanese national team a decade ago. Like Mascherano, Aguirre is also considering options other than the Korean national team.
A senior association official said, “We offered the amount based on the precedent of foreign managers. We have budgetary constraints, so if it doesn’t fit, we can’t afford it,” said a senior KFA official.
The KFA is in a tight financial position after paying a penalty for firing Klinsmann and building the Cheonan Soccer Center.
Critics say the KFA has shot itself in the foot by not setting a clear direction from the beginning of the process and trying to hire a coach on a shoe-string budget.
There have been allegations that the process was a cakewalk, with Hwang Sun-hong, the U-23 national team coach, and Hong Myung-bo, the head coach of Ulsan HD, as the finalists, but with Hong declining the job and Hwang unavailable after failing to qualify for the Paris Olympics, the federation’s options are dwindling.