Seoul, South KoreaCNN — The coach of the South Korean national soccer team has been fired in the wake of a brawl between star player and captain Son Heung-min and midfielder Lee Kang-in before the team’s disastrous Asian Cup exit.
“(Jürgen) Klinsmann has failed to show his competence in managing the game, the players, along with the expected attitudes as a South Korean coach,” Chung Mong-gyu, chairman of the Korean Football Association (KFA) said announcing Klinsmann’s ouster on Friday.
“Klinsmann’s competence and his attitudes do not measure up to the standard of the Korean nationals.”
Anger over Klinsmann’s management of the national team has been heating up in South Korea since its Asian Cup disappointment and news of the altercation between the hugely popular Son and rising star Lee.
Earlier Friday, a KFA official confirmed to CNN that Son, the Tottenham Hotspur superstar and captain, and Lee, who plays club soccer for Paris Saint-Germain in France’s Ligue 1, clashed about playing table tennis before the national team’s 2-0 loss to Jordan in the Asian Cup semifinal on February 6.
“A physical brawl occurred between the Korean national football team players Son Heung-min and Lee Kang-in during dinner the day before the Asian Cup semifinal match against Jordan,” an official at the KFA said.
The official added that the KFA could not confirm any further details.
The loss to Jordan, No. 87 in FIFA’s world rankings, was seen as a major embarrassment for the 23rd-ranked South Korean side.
Photographs and video from the day of the Jordan match show Son with two fingers on his right hand strapped together with a white bandage.
A statement from Lee’s lawyer Kim Ga-ram said that the player “deeply regrets and reflects on his wrongdoings.”
Kim said in a statement that playing table tennis is a regular activity for the South Korea squad and that local media reports alleging Lee “threw a fist in Son Heung-min’s face when Son Heung-min grabbed the back of Lee Kang-in’s neck” are “not true.”
In an Instagram story, reported by CNN affiliate JTBC, Lee apologized to South Korean fans.
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