K-League

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K-League K-League 2007


Founded
1983
Current member clubs
14
Current champion
Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma
League system
Two sections of 13 matches each. Both section winners join the two teams with the best overall record in an end-of-season Championship playoff.

The Korea Professional Football League (K-League) is South Korea's professional club football league and is one of the most successful leagues in Asian club football competitions.

The K-League was founded in 1983 as the Korean Super League, with five member clubs including amateur clubs. The initial five clubs were Hallelujah, Daewoo, POSCO, Yukong Elephants and Kookmin Bank. Hallelujah won the inaugural title, finishing one point ahead of Daewoo to lift the crown.

In 1994, Korea's soccer league was reformed and renamed the K-League, since then, the league has expanded to fourteen teams. Of the five inaugural clubs, only Daewoo, POSCO and Yukong Elephants remain in the K-League; Kookmin Bank FC dropped out of the league at the end of 1984, and Hallelujah followed the season after.

Most of the member clubs in the league are owned by major Korean Chaebols, and the club names reflect that fact. Teams have adopted local city names in an effort to integrate themselves more with the local communities; for example, Daewoo evolved over the years into Daewoo Royals, Busan Daewoo Royals, Busan I'cons and latterly Busan I'Park.

The Lucky Goldstar (LG) corporation caused a huge controversy at the end of 2003 when they made the decision to uproot their Anyang LG Cheetahs team from the Seoul satellite city of Anyang and move into the empty Seoul World Cup stadium, becoming FC Seoul which caused a strong supporter protest against the move from many fans around the league. Then following the 2005 season SK announced it was moving the Bucheon SK team to Jeju Island, where they have become Jeju United.

1 Korean football league structure
2 The league season
3 K-League history
4 Famous players
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Korean football league structure

At present there is only one professional league in Korea, the K-League, and it contains fourteen member clubs.

Below the level of the K-League there is the K2 League, a closed semi-professional/amateur league with twelve members, established in 2003.

It was planned that the winner of the K2 League in 2006 would be promoted to the K-League. However Goyang Kookmin caused controversy by winning the league but declining to move up. They cited a Korean law where banks in Korea (Goyang is owned by Kookmin Bank) were not allowed to be involved in profitable ventures outside of banking which of course a professional football team could be. However the more likely reason is the large financial losses that most K-League teams endure each year as the league struggles for sponsorship money and suffers through low crowd numbers. On top of that new teams (such as Goyang) were being asked for a 'entry fee' of around 2 million US dollars simply to join the league. They received several threats from the League ranging from being thrown out of the competition, to fines, to point deductions for the upcoming 2007 season. As yet it remains unclear as to what, if any, punishment they will receive.

Following this case involving Goyang most teams in the K2-League have signed an agreement that they will go up to the K-League if they win the K2-League in 2007, whilst other teams have opted for a possibly less binding verbal agreement only. The gap between the K2 League and K-League is massive in terms of the finances needed to run a team which may continue to cause problems for the league in coming years.

There is also a rumour that a K3 division will begin in the near future with promotion relegation with the K 2 league eventually being established.

[edit] The league season

The K-League season typically begins around March/April and runs to late November each year. The amount of games, clubs and the systems used have varied through the years, but for 2006 the league will continue to use the two-part season with championship play-offs at the end of the year, as previously used in 2004 and 2005.

The fourteen member clubs play each other once in the first and second stages, giving a total of 26 matches. The winners of both stages advance to the championship play-offs, together with the two teams holding the best overall record from the combined stages. The winner of the play-off tournament (two semi-finals at a neutral venue followed up by a home and away final) will be declared league Champion.

The K-League champions gain entry to the Asian Champions League the following season.

[edit] K-League history

Ilhwa Chunma are the most successful team in terms of championship victories, having lifted the title on no less than seven occasions. The roll-call of champions is as follows (present-date names included where teams have changed names previously):

[edit] K-League champions

Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma: 1993, 1994, 1995, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006
Busan I'Park: 1984, 1987, 1991, 1997
Pohang Steelers: 1986, 1988, 1992
Anyang Cheetahs FC: 1985, 1990, 2000
Suwon Samsung Bluewings: 1998, 1999, 2004
Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i: 1996, 2005
Hallelujah: 1983
Bucheon FC: 1989

[edit] Winners (year by year)

Year	Winner	Runner-up
1983	Hallelujah	Daewoo
1984	Daewoo Royals	Yukong Elephants
1985	Lucky-Goldstar Hwangso	POSCO Atoms
1986	POSCO Atoms	Lucky-Goldstar Hwangso
1987	Daewoo Royals	POSCO Atoms
1988	POSCO Atoms	Hyundai Horang-i
1989	Yukong Elephants	Lucky-Goldstar Hwangso
1990	Lucky-Goldstar Hwangso	Daewoo Royals
1991	Daewoo Royals	Hyundai Horang-i
1992	POSCO Atoms	Ilhwa Chunma
1993	Ilhwa Chunma	LG Cheetahs
1994	Ilhwa Chunma	Yukong Elephants
1995	Ilhwa Chunma	Pohang Atoms
1996	Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i	Suwon Samsung Bluewings
1997	Pusan Daewoo Royals	Chunnam Dragons
1998	Suwon Samsung Bluewings	Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i
1999	Suwon Samsung Bluewings	Pusan Daewoo Royals
2000	Anyang LG Cheetahs	Bucheon FC
2001	Songnam Ilhwa Chunma	Anyang LG Cheetahs
2002	Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma	Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i
2003	Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma	Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i
2004	Suwon Samsung Bluewings	Pohang Steelers
2005	Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i	Incheon United
2006	Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma	Suwon Samsung Bluewings
2007