Tainted Taekwondo Reputation

Is taekwondo seeing a tainted reputation?

It may actually be that the martial art of taekwondo is starting to see a bit of a bad rap, at least far when it comes to the Korean mainland (South-Korea).

It appears evidence is emerging, showing how taekwondo matches are being fixed and the results are being rigged in favor of one of the fighters. A former executive of the Seoul City Taekwondo Association is reported to give an interview with a South-Korean radio program where he talked rumors about bribery to manipulate the results of taekwondo matches.

"Bronze medal costs 10 million won, silver 20 million won, gold 40 million won…"
"(It is) just a tip of iceberg." (from english.donga.com)

One report talked about a father of one taekwondo fighter, a high school student. The judge in one of his son's matches clearly made a lot of bad and highly suspect calls - something which led to the opponent being declared winner of the fight.

A month later, the father committed suicide as a result of the important match in his son's career, writing:

"My son lost the match because of those warnings and he now wants to quit taekwondo. I cannot sleep and I don't want to eat .?.?. and now I am exhausted in the end."

Even though it is quite something else killing yourself over this, it get's worse... 

The father's suicide prompted taekwondo officials to carry out an investigation. It was concluded that the 47-year-old referee had evidently made a number of wrong calls. Then, a year later, authorities announced new findings clearly showing the match had been fixed. The father of the other fighter, as well as officials from the Seoul Taekwondo Association was behind the scandal.

Tainted taekwondo reputation in Korea - Image from Flickr.com