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South Korean President Lee Jae-myung Criticizes the National Team’s Performance: The Elimination Is Too Absurd

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung expressed strong dissatisfaction with the South Korean national team’s early elimination from the 2026 World Cup, directly calling it “too absurd to be eliminated,” and saying the team’s performance fell far short of what the public expected.

His remarks on social media quickly sparked heated discussion. Supporters said he voiced the people’s sentiments, while critics accused him of using sports as a pretext for political manipulation. The remarks came at a sensitive time in South Korea’s political landscape, as Lee Jae-myung has recently frequently spoken out on public affairs, showing an intention to strengthen his connection with public opinion.

On June 28, the World Cup group stage ended today. After the Democratic Republic of Congo defeated Uzbekistan, South Korea was confirmed to miss out on the knockout stage. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung posted on social media to criticize this.

After the team’s elimination, Choi Hwi-young, the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism of South Korea, posted on social media that South Korean football must start anew. Lee Jae-myung retweeted the post, and wrote that South Korea’s elimination this time was a failure at the organizational and personnel level.

Lee Jae-myung’s post:

As a former honorary general manager of a professional football team, and also a member of the “Red Devils” (“Red Devils,” the fans’ nickname for the Korea national team) who cares deeply about the Taeguk warriors, I’m not only confused by this unexpected outcome—I also find it absurd.

This once again proves the principle that “personnel determines everything.” When more emphasis is placed on building cliques and factions than on ability, and the incompetent are put into command positions, what the result will be is obvious.

Such an absurd personnel arrangement—confusing public and private matters and putting personal interests above the public good—exists precisely because supervision, checks, and accountability over the people who make personnel decisions are difficult to achieve or fundamentally cannot be achieved.

This failure to advance from the World Cup has disappointed the public, and it appears to be a failure at the organizational and personnel level.

With large amounts of national taxpayers’ money and national support invested in the World Cup, I hope the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will carefully ascertain the accurate details of this incident, analyze the causes, and formulate measures to prevent it from happening again and to improve the situation.

Because such an absurd matter has brought deep disappointment to the public, I sincerely apologize. To prevent such incidents from happening again, we will promptly advance sports administration reform.

According to Beijing time on June 28, the Group K group stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico concluded. In the third round, two matches were played at the same time: Colombia 0-0 Portugal, with the top two teams advancing together. Congo (DRC) came back to defeat Uzbekistan 3-1, earning a place in the knockout stage as the third-place team, which also means that the South Korean team is completely out of the knockout stage.

Also, according to Beiqing Sports, Korean media slammed the “golden generation” for a humiliating elimination, lamenting it as the worst World Cup in history.

Korean media report:

Korean media wrote: In the 2026 World Cup, for the first time in history, 48 teams participated, 32 teams advanced to the knockout stage, yet South Korea couldn’t even make it into the round of 32.

From the appointment of the coach to the lack of tactics, and then to the management of the tournament, this World Cup ultimately became the worst in history—both the process and the results are disappointing. After the Democratic Republic of Congo defeated Uzbekistan 3-1, South Korea’s hopes of advancing to the round of 32 were completely dashed.

Looking back, it seems something went wrong from the very beginning. Because the Korea Football Association appointed coach Hong Myung-bo, controversies over fairness arose, and fans had already been critical of the South Korean team.

This morning, Korean media published photos of the South Korean national team training in Mexico on the morning of the 27th local time, under the headline 《There Are No More Laughter at the Training Ground》. Korean netizens sharply commented below: “How can you still laugh at a time like this? That must be insane… ‘When are you going back home? You’d better bring some eggs—you have to do something, right…’”

It is reported that before the start of the tournament, Korea Football Association Chairman Chung Mong-gyu promised that if the national team advanced to the World Cup round of 32, he would privately donate 1 billion won (about 4.43 million yuan). The Korea Football Association would also award an advancement bonus of 100 million won (about 443,000 yuan). Now that South Korea has been confirmed to miss out on the 1.1 billion won bonus entirely.