Seoul City Amazones jumped to the defence of forward Park Eun-seon on Thursday after rival managers in the South Korean women's top flight threatened to boycott the league unless she takes a gender test.
Park, who played for South Korea at the 2003 women's World Cup and has won 19 caps, said she was "humiliated" by the incident while lawmakers have called for an investigation into whether her human rights had been violated.
The Korea Football Association said Park took and passed a gender test at the age of 15, though they did not reveal specifics of the result. After news of the boycott threat emerged this week, the six coaches were the target of a social media backlash and tried to downplay the matter as a joke made at a private meeting.
Lee Sung-kyun, the coach of Suwon, told Reuters by telephone on Thursday he had resigned to apologise but maintained there was no real threat of a boycott and the issue of a gender test was merely to get Park back into the national team.
At a news conference held at Seoul City Hall, however, irate Amazones coach Seo Jung-ho lashed out at his rivals and said they were undermining Korean women's soccer. "This should not have happened," he said, his voice rising with anger. "It is just so terrible to see the coaches, who should be mustering wisdom for the future of Korean women's soccer, colluding to hurt one of our best players."
Local media reported that six of the WK-League's seven coaches held an informal meeting on Oct. 19 and subsequently filed a complaint with the KFA that if Park did not take a gender test they would boycott next year's competition.
