Former IOC member elected president of Korea Sports Council

SEOUL, Feb. 19 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's sports governing body selected on
Thursday former International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Park Yong-sung as
its new president.
Park, 69, currently the chairman of Doosan Group, received 26 votes from 50
senior sports officials at an electoral meeting held in eastern Seoul. He will
serve a four-year term as head of the Korea Sports Council (KSC) until 2013.
His rival candidate, Park Sang-ha, chairman of the Korea Soft Tennis Association,
obtained 12 votes.
Park Yong-sung resigned as the chief of the International Judo Federation and
from the IOC in September 2007. He was sentenced to a five-year suspended jail
term in 2006 for embezzlement and was subsequently suspended from those
positions, but was reinstated into both in April the following year.
Park succeeds Lee Yun-taek, who has served as KSC president since last May when
his predecessor Kim Jung-kil suddenly resigned due to a conflict with the
Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, which oversees the KSC. Lee has said he
will not seek re-election.
"I will seek to secure more funding for the development of Korean sports. One
year later I will prove that I can lead the KSC successfully," Park said after
the election win. "I'll do my best as I regard the post as an honor," said Park
who will double as chief of the Korea Olympic Committee.
Since its foundation in 1920, the KSC has been led by prominent politicians and
businessmen such as Chung Ju-yung, the late founder of Hyundai Group, and Kim
Un-yong, former IOC vice-president.
brk@yna.co.kr
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