What the hell is going on here? First there's this: http://www.dutchfootball.net/online/index_fullnews.php?category=1&id=289 And then there's this article in Sportsseoul about Sangrae Noh and Moonshik Choi having agreed on a deal to move to Dallas Burn: http://sportsseoul.com/html/view.asp?filename=20030207ab039 No other Korean football news websites have yet to mention anything about this. I had read about Sangrae Noh's link with Dallas Burn before but it was probably on Sportsseoul... According to the article, the agents for Noh and Choi are "Wonder Sports" It's hard for me to take this seriously especially because of a similar article from November on another Korean website: http://www.fnnews.com/html/fnview/2002/1128/091904596811111100.html which stated that Wonder Sports had confirmed that both Sangchul Yoo and JungWon Suh were set to move to, you guessed it, Dallas Burn. What sticks out from all this are: 1. There are many Korean agents who don't know what they're doing or lie their asses off to profit from the success of the World Cup and ultimately accomplishing nothing except for tainting the image of K-league and Korean football in general. 2. You can never trust Korean football news "media", although the Italian press have proven to be even worse. The lesson here is that you can never trust the media in general, but especially the corporate owned mainstream media.
From what I have learned from acquaintances who are or have been journalists, I am led to believe is that the standards for accuracy and truthfulness in newspapers and media are looser in Korea than, say, the US. My apologies to those Korean journalists who strive for a higher standard. As for the Dave de Jong story, brothers, let's accept the truth: There remains a lot of reform that needs to be done in Korea in basic and fundamental areas. This is not a forum for political and societal issues, so I'll cut it short, but this type of stuff is rooted in a system that that has not embraced the concept of fair play as much as advantage or success at any cost and a system that lacks adequate controls. I'm not saying an incident like that couldn't happen elsewhere, but the likelihood would be much smaller. Returning to soccer, this kind of crap only fuels the naysaying case of those in Europe who can't stomach Korea's recent success on the field.
I think it's America who can't stomach. Have u been to the rivalry board? Other than Italy, Europe in general raised their assessment on Korean football as evidenced by their willingness to sign korean players. Now, we should set our focus in 2006wc. I really like the logo, btw.
amen, even AFTER we saved their asses. Ungrateful bastards. We should have just let the Portuguese tie instead.
My experiences with Korean agents, clubs etc... Be very careful. I have done some translations here for foreign players andso I have been a very intimate part of negotiations here in Korea. Korea as a business culture itself is very difficult. The most difficult thing about Korean culture is that Koreans regard themselves as the "higher" beings on this planet - I've even been told that by Korean students that they are taught in school that non-Koreans are less evolved, thus closer to apes- try negotiating with people who view you as an animal. They can be goofy too. While Brazilians held the World Cup title, primarily Brazilians were contracted because in their eyes each and every Brazilian must then be a better player than those of other countries... the result- a lot Brazilians got a nice ride here in Korea... lucky them. Perhaps Italian natives should start looking for work here- don't worry, aparently actual skill and ability is not as important as the fact that your country won the last World Cup. Sorry, a bit off topic, anyway- agents here seem to get money under the table from clubs to convince players to accept lower signing bonuses and salaries- be very wary of this. The other problem is that they will deposit less in your bank account and say that taxes were taken off but then they won't actually pay the taxes to the government - so be very careful about tax clauses in your contract, and make sure you contact the national tax office to see that your taxes were paid for you. Reccomendations: if you have offers for a country other than Korea- think about it even if it offers you less, the problems you will likely experience here with agents, club owners, cultural differences probably aren't going to be worth it.
My cousin, who's worked all over the world experienced the same exact things pretty much everywhere she went, including places like Argentina, England, Quebec, and Japan, your point?
You have some interesting points, but I'm taking them with a grain of salt. For every foreigner that has an excellent and collaborative experience with Koreans and Korea there is an angry ex-pat that hates the country with a passion (but stays or keeps going back). Like Yimmy said...why bring this back after 3 years? Weird..