At the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the interest in the Korean men’s national soccer team, which achieved the feat of advancing to the round of 16 after 12 years, seems to lead to the rewards the players will receive.
On the 8th, President Yoon Seok-yeol invited the players of the national team to the Blue House guesthouse and held a welcome dinner, and the next day, at a private dinner with the heads of economic organizations, he said, “The players suffered, but why does the Korea Football Association take more dividends (prizes)?” reported to have said
Then, at a cabinet meeting on the 13th, he said, “The core of the content business is the star business,” and said, “It is necessary to check whether a system has been prepared to ensure that fair compensation is provided in the process.”
It is interpreted as pointing out that there is a problem in distributing player rewards that are less than half of the World Cup prize money. Most of the media that reported this analyzed that the president’s remarks were based on the previous media report that the Korea 메이저놀이터 Football Association decided to pay about 7 billion won as a reward to the players out of the 17 billion won prize money received from FIFA for advancing to the round of 16.
Does the Football Association actually take a bigger share of FIFA prize money? What about other countries?
The total prize money of the Qatar World Cup, in which 32 countries advanced to the finals, is $440 million (approximately 580 billion won), which is a 10% increase from the 2018 World Cup in Russia, the largest ever.
FIFA pays prize money differently according to the results of the tournament, with the winner receiving $42 million (approximately KRW 55.4 billion), the runner-up receiving $30 million (approximately KRW 39.6 billion), the third place receiving $27 million (approximately KRW 35.6 billion), and the fourth Above is 25 million dollars (about 33 billion won). Countries advancing to the quarterfinals will receive 17 million dollars (approximately 22.4 billion won), those who advance to the round of 16 will receive 13 million dollars (approximately 17.2 billion won), and the 16 eliminated countries will also receive 9 million dollars (approximately 11.9 billion won) each. .
The prize money is paid to the football association of the country that participated in the tournament. This is because the main body participating in the World Cup is not the individual player, but the national team run by the soccer association of each country. Even if individual players receive attention, it is also the purpose of the Football Association to discover and nurture them and make administrative efforts so that the country’s football can develop. The World Cup prize money is a dividend and reward for successfully completing the tournament.
There is no set guideline on how much of the prize money the Football Association receives from FIFA will be paid to participating players as rewards and how much will be invested in game development. The football associations of each country judge and execute at their discretion.
As a result of confirming with the Korea Football Association, Korea receives 17.2 billion won in prize money from FIFA for advancing to the round of 16, and the criteria for players were already confirmed in May, six months before the tournament.
Each of the 26 players who entered the final entry will receive a basic reward of 20 million won, 30 million won for each game winning, 10 million won for a draw, and an additional 100 million won if they advance to the round of 16.
If we apply the set reward standard to the final performance of the national team, which reached the round of 16 with 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss in the group stage, but failed to advance to the quarterfinals, it can be seen that the amount of reward per player is 160 million won.
If we add an additional 5 million won per player as support for the players’ families to attend the tournament, the prize money for the finals will be 165 million won per player.
In addition, the Korean national team succeeded in advancing to the World Cup finals 10 times in a row with a record of 7 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss in 10 World Cup qualifying matches played until last March prior to the finals.
As a result, the 30 players who participated in the final qualifying round received rewards ranging from 40 million won to 100 million won, respectively, depending on their contribution. If the rewards for the preliminaries and finals are added together, the World Cup rewards for the national team players are between 205 and 265 million won per person.
Lastly, the reward of 2 billion won, which was personally provided by the head of the Korea Football Association, Chung Mong-gyu, is separate from this, so if this is added, the reward per player increases to 281 million won to 341 million won. This 2 billion won will be equally distributed to 26 finalists, 76 million won each.
In addition to the players, the Korean World Cup team includes coach Paulo Bento and six coaching staff, who also receive rewards according to a non-disclosure agreement, but the amount was not disclosed.
In response to a query by Yonhap News asking about the total amount of prize money paid to the national team out of the prize money for the World Cup, the Korea Football Association (KFA) announced a total of 9.5 billion won, including prizes based on performance in the finals (6.241 billion won) and rewards for advancing to the finals (3.26 billion won). answered. It is equivalent to 55.2% of the total prize money received from FIFA (17.2 billion won).
Is this kind of bounty payment rate high compared to other countries? is it low? As explained earlier, the World Cup reward money is distributed by the soccer associations of each country, but it is not easy to compare countries because the details are not disclosed.
However, if you look at the foreign press reports, you can figure out the standard of reward payment for the Australian national team that advanced alongside Korea in the Asian region. According to a Fox Sports report, the Australian Football Association decided to pay 40% of the $9 million in basic prize money paid by FIFA to all 32 countries advancing to the finals, and 50% of the additional $4 million in prize money for advancing to the round of 16. If you calculate the proportion of player rewards in the total prize money, it is 43.1%.
The U.S. also advances to the round of 16 in this tournament and receives $13 million in prize money. According to the principle of equal pay for men and women, the U.S. Football Association decided to add up the prize money for this men’s World Cup and the 2023 Women’s World Cup to be held next year, and distribute 45% of the total prize money to the male and female national teams.
Assuming that the U.S. women’s soccer team, which won the Women’s World Cup a total of four times until the 2019 French tournament, wins next year’s tournament and receives the same prize money of $4 million as the previous tournament, the men’s and women’s teams will each receive a reward of $7.65 million. do.
In the end, the U.S. men’s team will receive up to 58.8 percent of the prize money ($13 million) for this World Cup in Qatar.
The Korea Football Association presented the examples of Japan and Australia in response to Yonhap News’ inquiry about whether they have identified any examples of bounty distribution in other countries. In the case of Japan, they answered that they figured out around 50% of the FIFA prize money, and the explanation about Australia matched the contents of foreign media reports.
In summary, the Korea Football Association plans to pay 55%, or 9.5 billion won, of the 17.2 billion won prize money received from FIFA for participating in the World Cup in Qatar as rewards, and use 45%, or 7.7 billion won, for operating expenses. The Football Association confirmed that it spent 7.9 billion won for the Qatar World Cup qualifiers and finals.
Therefore, it cannot be said that the Football Association takes more World Cup prize money than the players. Compared to other countries, it is difficult to make a judgment as there are only a few confirmed cases. At least, compared to Australia or Japan, it seems that the percentage of prize money returned to players is not small.