South Korea’s sports scandal continues to be released.
According to Xinhua News Agency on the 24th, South Korean men’s volleyball player Park Sang-ha admitted that he had bullied his classmates when he was a student and announced his immediate retirement.
Park Shanghe, 34, said, “I need to be responsible for bullying my classmates, so I will make the decision to retire and live in a reflective mentality in the future.”
Before Park Sang-ha, Lee Jae-young and Lee Do-young, the twin sisters of the South Korean women’s volleyball team who had been selected for the national team, were exposed to have bullying on campus and were indefinitely disqualified from the national team.
Lee Jae-young and Lee Do-young currently play for the Hingkoku Life Club in the South Korean Women’s Volleyball League. They have played as the main players of the national team in the 2019 World Volleyball League, the Tokyo Olympic Games qualifiers and the Asian qualifiers.
In February this year, a victim who claimed to have been bullied by the Lee sisters while in school posted on the Internet, pointing out to the harm caused by Lee Jae-young and Lee Do-young to themselves, causing a public opinion sensation in South Korea.
The victim cited 21 bullying practices, including physical violence, money theft and knife threats. And said: “At least four other victims have suffered similar abuse.”
After the release of this article, another alumni came forward to reveal that the Li sisters had let their junior classmates wash clothes, and beat and bullied them.
Then on the 10th of this month, Lee Jae-ying posted a handwritten apology letter on his personal social media: “Because I was immature in the past and hurt many people, I want to bow my head to apologize. It is wrong that many people were hurt by me when I had made good memories.
In recent years, South Korea’s sports world has been surrounded by bullying, sexual assault, violence and other disturbances, and incidents similar to the Lee sisters are not just an exception.
The results of the 2019 National Human Rights Commission of South Korea conducted a survey of 63,211 student athletes in primary, middle and high schools across the country showed that 14.7% of respondents (8,440) said they had been subjected to physical violence by coaches or seniors, and 15.7% (9,035) had been verbal and Violative violence such as threats.
Among the student athletes in junior high school, primary school students suffer the most from verbal violence, and physical violence increases with the increase of grade. High school students suffer the most from physical violence.
Xu Zhengxun, a professor of physical education science at Central University of South Korea, once said that this problem has become a persistent disease in South Korea’s sports world.
“The deep-rooted abuse problem in South Korea’s sports world killed them. Behind South Korea’s sports achievements is a strict training system that believes that violence is justified as long as medal winners can be produced.
On the 24th, South Korean media also revealed that there were star football players who had sexual violence against their descendants in elementary school. Many people speculated that the star player was Ji Chengyong.
In response, Ji Chengyong denied that: “Shui Chengyong has nothing to do with the reported incident, and will not hesitate to take legal measures to deal with the slandered rumors.”
