Civil Society Organizations Criticize Son Woong-jung for ‘Child Abuse Controversy’
Civil society groups have criticized Son Woong-jung, 62, the head coach of the SON soccer academy, for his “lack of human rights sensitivity” following a recent child abuse scandal.
“We are appalled that such an incident has occurred again, despite the fact that there has been a social consensus to end violence in sports and a number of institutional mechanisms have been created to protect human rights,” said a joint statement from the Culture Solidarity and Alternative Sports Association, the Minbyeon (Lawyers for a Democratic Society) Committee for Culture and Sports, the Sports Human Rights Institute, and the Citizens’ Alliance for Sports.
“In a statement, the academy leaders claimed that the agreement between coaches and players was that if they were late to a first-come, first-served race, they would be punched, and that ‘there was never any language that was not based on love for the children. This is not much different from the excuses of perpetrators of human rights abuses in sports. It only proves their lack of human rights sensitivity,” he said strongly.
“The children who train in silence to become successful athletes and the coaches who hold their leashes are in no way equal in status. How 토토사이트 can they ever be on equal footing and agree on corporal punishment?” “What’s even more outrageous is that in many cases of violence in sports, leaders use the excuse of ‘love’ and ‘discipline’ to perpetrate violence.”
“There is no reason to believe that other private soccer academies are free of similar abuse. Many children, adolescents, and parents may be silently enduring sports violence in order to succeed as athletes while being shielded by the ‘Son Heung-min myth,'” the organizations added.
The organizations demanded that SON Football Academy take measures to protect and support the affected children, and called on the authorities, the Korea Football Association, and the Sports Ethics Center to investigate the abuse cases.
Son Woong-jung, the father of Tottenham Hotspur’s Son Heung-min, is currently facing charges of child abuse. In March, during a training camp in Okinawa, Japan, Son came home with a bruise on his thigh, and his parent, B, filed a lawsuit against Son and two coaches.
“The facts of the complainant’s allegations differ from the truth in many ways, so the Academy is actively cooperating with the investigation by revealing the facts without distorting or hiding them,” Son Woong-jung said in a statement on March 26.