South Korea’s recent World Cup campaign came to a disappointing end. Ultimately a victim of the 3rd place lottery, the team failed to progress despite 3 points and a -1 goal difference usually being enough to qualify in similarly-formatted tournaments historically.

An intense public campaign against head coach Hong Myung-bo then ensued. Barred from many venues in Korea, Hong left the country only to find the same restrictions also applied in many Korean restaurants in Los Angeles.  President Lee later ordered the sports ministry to investigate both the preparation of the team and the process that appointed its coach.

Though Hong failed to meet expectations in the tournament, he leaves the national team performing at almost exactly the same level as when he took over and around the level that would be expected based on the quality of players, based on TFG’s overall team ratings that consider a wider sample of games and measures of underlying performance.

The answer is rarely a single coach, but the system as a whole.

Where South Korea stands today

South Korea has strong foundations: a population of over 50m people, a developed economy and a deep football culture and participation base. Nonetheless, the country’s men’s national team squad only ranks 35th in the world on player quality. Many countries have been able to develop significantly better squads with far smaller populations (e.g., Norway 11th, Croatia 14th).

The difference vs these countries isn’t the base of the professional pyramid. South Korea ranks 20th in the world for the number of players playing at a professional performance level, around the same as Norway and ahead of Croatia. However, the ‘strike rate’ of converting professionals into the world’s best is significantly lower. South Korea has no players in the world’s top 100 based on TFG ratings, and just 3 rated in the top 500. Of these 3, only Kim Min-jae is a genuine product of the domestic system, given Lee Kang-in was developed in Spain and Son Heung-min left for Germany aged 16.

This article analyses three potential drivers of the gap in elite talent.

1: A disjointed youth system, transitioning players too late

Professional minutes early in a player’s career are fundamental to elite development. However, South Korea’s first division (K-League 1) awarded the lowest proportion of minutes to U21 players of any nation in this year’s world cup with available data. Though young player minutes don’t guarantee success, most of the world’s major ‘overarchieving’ nations have domestic leagues that give a high proportion of minutes to youth.

This partially reflects a disconnected youth system. Elite high school programmes and K League club academies compete in separate leagues, so the country’s best sixteen-year-olds can go entire seasons without facing each other. A further share of Korean players come through university football, which pushes professional debuts towards an age most world-class players have already played several full seasons. Of all players born after 2000, TFG’s top 500 rated players averaged 60 full games of senior football before the age of 21, whereas the best 20 South Korean players had only played 27 matches by the same age.

Structural reform takes time, but fixing short term incentives could have immediate impact with minimal cost. Most coaches and sporting directors are still judged entirely on winning, but their incentives should also reflect long-term value created for the club, including the transition and development of youth.

2: Efficiency of spending within the domestic league

The quality level of domestic football is one of the biggest predictors of national team success. Players need access to high quality minutes early in their careers to ensure an elite trajectory, and a strong league drives commercial investment and domestic football fandom/participation. As the 28th best league globally, K-League 1 now finds itself notably behind neighbouring Japan, whose first tier has developed into the 15th best globally despite once looking up to Korea.

Simply spending more on players is rarely the right solution, but this is particularly true in Korea where club spend is a very weak predictor of success. Whilst most major leagues see an 80%+ correlation between wage spend and team performance, the relationship is closer to 40% in the K-League. This is also based on TFG’s overall performance ratings that factor in a wide range of indicators from goal timing to xG; correlation with raw points totals is even lower (c.20%).

For example, Jeonbuk finished 10th out of 12 teams in 2024 on the league’s second-largest wage bill, then won the 2025 title on the same budget. Ulsan did the reverse and followed its 2024 championship with a ninth-place finish despite the highest spend. Pohang had the 2nd best overall performance in 2024 with less than half the spend of Ulsan and Jeonbuk (despite this performance only being reflected in a 4th place finish).

This relationship provides an opportunity for Korean clubs, as closing the gap requires better decisions rather than new money. For example, moving a small fraction of the playing budget into back office functions that help instill ‘organisational intelligence’ (e.g., proper processes to evaluate talent ensure spend reflects value).

3: Failure to realise transfer fees for reinvestment

Clubs spent more than €11.5bn on international transfers globally across 2025, over three times the level a decade earlier. For leagues outside Europe’s big five, accessing player trading revenues is now a key route to sustainably growing revenues that can be reinvested back into the game and its development systems.

Despite room to improve spending efficiency, K-League clubs should be well positioned to receive these revenues given many players are performing at the requisite level. Nonetheless, Korean clubs are currently significantly underachieving vs their closest global counterparts. The league’s 12 closest first divisions by quality earned €96m in transfer income per season on average over the last 5 years. At €12m per season, K-League 1 clubs are currently losing out on c.€84m per season vs the revenue we’d expect based on similar quality leagues.

Part of this gap reflects an inefficiency among European clubs, who have historically overlooked equivalent talent in Korea in favour of players in more traditional recruitment markets closer to home. As openness to new markets grows, Korean clubs need to ensure the right operational systems are in place to capture these new revenue opportunities.

In conclusion

The investigation ordered by President Lee will inevitably focus on the head coach and operations of the federation, but the activities and support of the domestic league will be equally important to driving the national team success. The factors discussed above do not require large injections in new capital, but better systems to allocate the funds already in the game.

The broader review hopefully provides an exciting opportunity to review the entire system, in addition to the factors outlined in this article.

At Twenty First Group we work with teams, federations and leagues facing exactly this kind of reset, using our proprietary Intelligence to set strategies grounded in data and evidence. If you would like to understand how our work could apply to your own context, please contact us.

Jordan Heath
General Manager, APAC
jordan@twentyfirstgroup.com