More context to this unfortunate situation:en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20190221003553315SEOUL, Feb. 21 (Yonhap) -- The sports ministry concluded on Thursday that former national women's curlers endured abuse by their coaches and have yet to receive a large sum of prize money from competitions and corporate sponsors.
The ministry announced the findings of its five-week probe, which ran from Nov. 19 to Dec. 21, into allegations raised by members of the Olympic silver medal-winning women's curling team.
Collectively dubbed Team Kim after the common surname of all members, the curlers won a surprise silver medal at last year's PyeongChang Winter Olympics, capturing the imagination of a nation largely unfamiliar with the sport. But barely nine months after their Cinderella run, the curlers, led by skip Kim Eun-jung, claimed they had been subjected to unfair treatment and verbal and emotional abuse by curling coaches and officials.
The ministry said most of the allegations made by the curlers proved to be true and said the coaches owe nearly 94 million won (US$83,590) in prize money to the athletes. The figure includes payments from the team's corporate sponsors following the Olympics. Separately, of the unspecified amount of money Team Kim won at international competitions, the coaches embezzled some 30 million won without distributing it to the athletes.
The ministry's probe targeted South Korean curling's royal family of Kim Kyung-doo, former vice president of the Korean Curling Federation (KCF). His daughter, Kim Min-jung, was the head coach of the women's team when South Korea won silver at the PyeongChang Winter Games, and her husband, Jang Ban-seok, coached the mixed doubles team at PyeongChang 2018.
The ministry said the Kim family misappropriated some 19 million won of grants from the central government and the North Gyeongsang provincial government. The curlers were based in the province in the southeast part of the country. The Kims also attempted to turn the national curling operations into their family business by hiring their relatives into posts for which they were unqualified.
According to the ministry, Kim Kyung-doo brought in his nephew as an analyst for the national team, and signed Jang Ban-seok as a trainer without going through the proper hiring procedure. Kim Min-chan, Kim Kyung-doo's son, was discharged early from the military for health reasons, but his father placed him on the national team without conducting a health checkup and allowed him to compete at the PyeongChang Olympics.
Euiseong Curling Center in Euiseong, about 330 kilometers south of Seoul in North Gyeongsang Province, was hailed during the Olympics as the cradle of South Korean curling, but the ministry concluded that Kim Kyung-doo pocketed a huge sum of money while in charge of the facility.
The ministry learned that for about five years starting in 2014, Kim misappropriated some 590 million won, and it has found circumstantial evidence of tax evasion.
And while he was serving his KCF post, Kim unilaterally rejected requests to discipline his daughter, Kim Min-jung, as curlers cried foul over abuse.
The ministry said it has asked the Kim family to return some 210 million won in misappropriated money.
The ministry will ask police to look further into the officials' misconduct and will inform the National Tax Service of its findings regarding Kim Kyung-doo's potential tax evasion.
Kim Kyung-doo initially denied these allegations but did an about-face with an apology in early December. He also announced that he and the rest of his family will no longer be involved in curling.
That earlier apology aside, Kim and his family "didn't agree with" these findings, said Kang Jung-won, head of the sports cooperation bureau at the sports ministry.
Kang added that the ministry's special probe team reached its conclusions based on testimonies from other curling officials and relevant documents from the KCF.
Kim and his family may file an appeal against the ministry, Kang said.
In response to these findings, Kim Yeong-mi, lead of Team Kim, said she and her teammates felt a great weight has been lifted off their shoulders.
"We were pleased to hear that the claims we made earlier were found to be true," Kim said in a statement released by her agency, Brave & New. "We'd like to thank our fans for their continued support. Hopefully, our team will only have good things happen to us from now on."
Kim said her team only suspected that their coaches were embezzling prize money and were "quite surprised" by the amount announced by the ministry.
Team Kim lost in the national team selection tournament last August and was unable to represent the country at international events this season. They will get a shot at redemption in July.
jeeho@yna.co.kr