Even after the season is over, there is no respite in professional basketball. The 10-team league is in the midst of a turbulent off-season, with long-standing academic issues coming to the fore amid fears that the league’s system may collapse. Goyang Day One and Daegu Korea Gas Corporation, which bought and restarted their clubs in the first year, are at the centre of the issue.
The survival of Day One, which is up for sale after just one year of ownership, is being watched closely by the entire professional basketball world.스포츠토토
After acquiring the Goyang Orion and recreating it after the 2021-2022 season, Day One was the first team in the KBL to introduce a naming rights sponsorship system, but it was not fully trusted from the start. Eventually, parent company Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, which had acted as a sort of ‘insurance policy’ at the time, went into receivership not long after the season began, and the club’s financial difficulties became acute, and money-related issues, such as delays in paying membership fees and player wage arrears, followed them throughout the season. No progress was made on the sale of the club.
With no resolution, the KBL decided to wait until the 15th to hold an extraordinary general meeting and board meeting at 7am on the 16th to decide whether to expel Day One from the KBL. The KBL plans to declare the club’s dissolution unless the organisation resolves all outstanding salary arrears and provides convincing evidence of how it will operate normally in the future. The league has never expelled a team before.
Day One has head coach Kim Seung-ki, who has been elevated to the status of “mastermind” in recent years, and players such as Jeon Sung-hyun and Lee Jung-hyun who represent the league. If the club were to be expelled, both the players and staff would be scattered into the air without being paid. On the 2nd, some fans held a truck protest in front of the KBL headquarters, accusing the league of neglecting the Day One situation.
Korea Gas Corporation, which acquired Incheon Electronic Land a year earlier than Day One and then moved to Daegu to recreate the team, has been in the spotlight for its personnel issues. On the 1st, the organisation cancelled the contracts of head coach Yoo Yoo-hoon, general manager Shin Shin-woo, and general manager Lee Min-hyung and announced a new regime.
The KOGAS basketball team has been called the definitive version of ‘Hakyeon basketball’. This is because under the previous president, Chae Hee-bong, who was also a Yongsan High School graduate, the head coach, general manager, and head coach were recruited from Yongsan High School. While Yongsan alumni have been dominating the basketball world for a very long time, KOGAS has been criticised for its blatant politicisation. Creating an additional general manager position above the head coach, changing the rules despite being a “public corporation,” and hiring a basketball coach from the outside were all interpreted as taking care of alumni.
KOGAS, which had a new president, dismissed them all at once at the end of the season. It was a de facto recognition of the parachutists, who had remained silent in the face of uncomfortable gazes.
All three were still under contract, but were dismissed after failing to reach an agreement on their remaining salaries. The possibility of a court battle has been cautiously raised.