Page 13 - IAV Digital Magazine #499

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
South Korean Soccer TeamFined For Using Sex Dolls In Place of Fans In Empty Stadium
By Chuck Schilken, Staff Writer
The fans in the stands were tastefully attired in the home team’s colors.
They remained quiet and seated the entire game.
They were wear- ing masks and practicing proper social distancing, even though there was no way any of them could be infected with the novel coronavirus.
And, yet, those fans caused a lot of problems for FC Seoul. That’s because they were sex dolls.
The South
Korean soccer club was fined 100 million won ($81,410) by the Korea Professional Football League on Wednesday for using the adult toys to fill seats during a specta- tor-free game last weekend. It’s the most the K
League has ever fined a team.
“The disciplinary committee decid- ed to take heavy disciplinary action considering the graveness of the incident ... that has greatly insult- ed and hurt female and family fans and to pre- vent similar inci- dents going for- ward,” the K League said in a statement.
The league is playing with no fans present amid the COVID- 19 pandemic.
Representatives from FC Seoul have said the team thought it was using about 25 regular man- nequins to fill the void in the stands during its game Sunday against Gwangju. The league deter- mined that the
team had plenty of opportunities to notice the true nature of the dolls between the noon placement in the seats and 7 p.m. kickoff.
FC Seoul said it accepts its pun- ishment.
“We apologize deeply to all those concerned about the unfortunate situation that occurred,” stated FC Seoul, which
also has disci- plined some of its employees for their roles in the matter. “We will review our inter- nal procedures to ensure this does not happen again.”
The incident is also being investi- gated by Seoul Facilities Corp., which operates Seoul World Cup Stadium. A possi- ble punishment could be expul-
sion from the sta- dium.
“That would be the most serious measure,” an offi- cial told newspa- per Kookmin Ilbo. “We will review the incident and then decide what to do.”
FC Seoul said it has asked police for an investiga- tion into the sup- plier.
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