Why are South Korean football fans choosing European clubs over the K League?

Yoon Jin-woo had never gone to Seoul World Cup Stadium to watch FC Seoul, the city’s team and the club that calls South Korean football’s symbolic home its own. But on Sunday night, he made the pilgrimage from the suburbs of Gimpo to see Manchester City and Atletico Madrid, two European clubs whose pull in South Korea rivals, and often overwhelms, interest in the domestic game. The 21-year-old and his friends were among 50,000 fans who filled the stadium with City’s light blue and Atletico’s red-and-blue shirts, turning a pre-season friendly into a vivid display of where much of South Korean football passion now flows. Yoon and his friends sounded like broadcast announcers, calling out every player’s name and reacting excitedly to every dribble and shot. “I first became a fan in 2022 to cheer on Kevin De Bruyne. I’m his biggest fan,” he said, pointing to the former City midfielder whose jersey he was wearing. Many fans had arrived hours early to buy merchandise, take photos and catch a glimpse of players they usually watched on screens after midnight. The match, organised by Coupang Play, the streaming service of South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang, also marked South Korean star Lee Kang-in’s debut for Atletico, giving the occasion an added emotional pull for local fans. City beat Atletico 3-1, but the broader winner was European football itself. The night captured a deeper problem for South Korea’s domestic game: the K League struggles to convert the country’s love of football into regular support, while European clubs increasingly set the standard for quality, spectacle and emotional connection. Against the backdrop of South Korea’s disappointing World Cup exit and mounting scrutiny of the Korea Football Association, the country’s so-called national sport is facing one of its deepest periods of unease in years. Need for greener grass The K League, South Korea’s top professional football league, briefly enjoyed a renaissance in 2024 when former England midfielder and Premier League star Jesse Lingard signed with FC Seoul. His arrival brought record crowds and rare international attention, but the surge did not resolve the deeper problems facing the domestic game. Since Lingard’s departure in December, attention around South Korean football has again been dominated by controversy, including the fallout from national team head coach Hong Myung-bo’s failed World Cup campaign and mounting scrutiny of the Korea Football Association. Average K League attendance per match, which had remained above 10,000 since 2023 and previously hit a peak of 11,003 in 2024, has dipped to 9,008 so far this season, according to data from the league. Meanwhile, professional baseball continues to draw record crowds and dominate the country’s sporting conversation. The contrast has been difficult to miss: the Korea Baseball Organisation League now averages about 18,000 fans per game, while the K League remains far behind in total attendance and media attention. During Lingard’s final press conference with FC Seoul in December, the former captain highlighted pitch conditions, club infrastructure and refereeing as three areas for improvement. Lee Jong-sung, a professor of sports management at Hanyang University, said Lingard’s comments reflected the “deeply rooted perception that the K League is simply too backward or underdeveloped compared with European football”. “When you watch professional football in European leagues, the flow of passing and even the pitch itself gives you this overwhelming impression,” he told This Week in Asia. “K League stadiums simply haven’t been able to create that same feeling.” The former football journalist said part of the gap stemmed from how South Korean stadiums were run. “European club stadiums are often operated by the clubs themselves or by third parties affiliated with them. In Korea, by contrast, very few K League clubs actually own or operate their stadiums,” Lee Jong-sung said. “Local governments have traditionally managed football stadiums in Korea, and that has meant there hasn’t been much investment or serious consideration given to professionally managing the pitches, whether in terms of personnel or financial resources.” That also limited the commercial ecosystem around clubs, he said, as football offered far fewer home games than baseball, resulting in fewer opportunities to turn stadiums into year-round destinations. “In legacy media and major media outlets, the K League has rarely been treated as a major news topic. Almost all of the headlines among professional sports are effectively dominated by professional baseball.” Aftermath of 2002 World Cup The 2002 World Cup was one of the most transformative moments in modern South Korean society that helped change the country’s sporting gaze. South Korea’s historic run to the semi-finals as co-hosts turned players including Park Ji-sung, Lee Young-pyo and Ahn Jung-hwan into national heroes and global names as they were recruited by top European clubs. “The world view of Korean sports fans shifted from the United States towards Europe, and people often refer to this as the era of overseas football,” Lee Jong-sung said. “Fans call it haechuk for short, and this culture has become so big today that among peer groups, particularly among boys, not being familiar with European football could make it somewhat difficult to be part of conversations.” The rise of European football was reinforced by a new generation of Korean stars whose careers unfolded on the continent. Son Heung-min became one of the Premier League’s most popular players, while Lee Kang-in’s move to Paris Saint-Germain, before his latest transfer to Atletico, gave South Korean fans another reason to follow the European game. “When young Koreans travel to Europe, it’s almost become a ritual for them to attend at least one or two football matches, whether that’s a Premier League game or a match in Spain,” Lee Jong-sung said. “Even if they travel during the off season when there are no matches, they’ll often make a point of visiting a big club’s museum or stadium tour and spending money on souvenirs.” Kim Se-hoon, content executive for Wolverhampton Wanderers, said European clubs were also far more conscious of keeping overseas fans engaged beyond matchdays. The English Football League Championship club is best known in South Korea as the home of forward Hwang Hee-chan. “Football leagues in the UK set global standards not only in terms of players’ performances, but also in content creation and distribution”, such as footage from training sessions and interviews, he told This Week in Asia. Clubs there put “considerable thought” into maintaining relationships with fans and keeping them engaged through informal channels such as fan groups and online communities, he added. “For us, we offer fans the opportunity to directly meet club officials to voice their concerns about the club’s activities.” In the K League, by contrast, fan frustration has often taken more confrontational forms, with supporters sending protest trucks to club offices or stadiums and, in some cases, blocking team buses after unpopular decisions over managers, players or club management. Lee Jong-sung said South Korean football needed to rethink what kind of sporting culture it wanted to build. “Football in our country shouldn’t only be concentrated on World Cup results. We need to set goals for what we want to achieve in other areas as well, and have a broader discussion about those ambitions,” he said. “Only then can Korean football become a team and a footballing nation that can continue to grow and remain competitive over the long term, rather than simply having a one-off successful World Cup.”

Why are South Korean football fans choosing European clubs over the K League?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Observers say the K League has fallen short of the standards European clubs have set for quality, spectacle and emotional connection

Observers say the K League has fallen short of the standards European clubs have set for quality, spectacle and emotional connection