Prosecutors Consider Full Reinvestigation of 'Seongnam FC Sponsorship Fund' Allegations... Raids at About 10 Locations Including Cha Hospital

Seongnam Branch Office, Dandae-dong, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do.

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] The prosecution investigating the 'Seongnam FC sponsorship fund' allegations launched a comprehensive raid on more than 10 locations, including Naver, on the morning of the 26th.

The Criminal Division 3 of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office Seongnam Branch (Chief Prosecutor Yoo Min-jong) is conducting raids on over 10 locations, including Naver and Cha Hospital offices, from the morning regarding the Seongnam FC sponsorship fund allegations.

This is the third time the prosecution has conducted raids related to the Seongnam FC sponsorship fund allegations, following raids on more than 20 locations including Doosan Construction headquarters, Seongnam City, and Seongnam FC offices on the 16th, and the Doosan Group headquarters on the 20th.

The 'Seongnam FC allegations' were raised in 2018 when the Bareunmirae Party filed a criminal complaint. The allegations claim that Lee Jae-myung, then mayor of Seongnam and now leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, as the club owner of Seongnam FC, secured large sponsorship funds from companies in exchange for resolving corporate issues.

After the Seongnam Ilhwa football team was rebranded as the citizen football team Seongnam FC and Lee became the club owner, six companies located in Seongnam City?Doosan Construction, Naver, Nonghyup, Bundang Cha Hospital, Hyundai Department Store, and Alphadom City?provided a total of 16.05 billion KRW to Seongnam FC from 2015 to 2017 under the names of sponsorship and advertising fees.

In June 2018, the Bareunmirae Party filed a criminal complaint against Lee for third-party bribery with the Seongnam Branch of the prosecution. The allegation was based on the premise that, similar to how several large corporations provided large sponsorship funds to the Mir Foundation and K-Sports Foundation during former President Park Geun-hye's administration, these companies owning major facilities in Seongnam City might have indirectly supported Seongnam FC as a means to expect issue resolution through Lee or as a quid pro quo for specific civil petitions such as building permits or land use changes.

Earlier, the police investigating the case reported that Lee secured approximately 5.5 billion KRW in advertising sponsorship funds from Doosan Construction between 2016 and 2018, and in return, Doosan Group had the hospital site of about 3,000 pyeong in Jeongja-dong, Bundang-gu, changed to commercial land use. On the 13th, the police sent the case to the prosecution with a recommendation to indict Lee, one Seongnam city official, and the former CEO of Doosan Construction.

At that time, Seongnam City increased the floor area ratio, building scale, and total floor area by about three times and received a 10% donation of the total site area, which led the police to conclude that Doosan provided substantial benefits.

On the other hand, the police found no charges against the other five companies?Naver, Nonghyup Bank, Cha Hospital, Alphadom City, and Hyundai Department Store?that provided advertising sponsorship funds to Seongnam FC besides Doosan Construction.

However, since the prosecution included Cha Hospital, which the police had cleared, in the raid targets, there is speculation that the prosecution is re-examining the entire case.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.