The aftershock of the so-called ‘2701 Incident’, which originated when Son Heung-min’s personal trainer posted a ‘football association sniper’ on Instagram, continues. It’s a structural problem, and it’s a recurring conflict. If you focus on personal conflicts, another ‘2701 Incident’ cannot be avoided at the next competition. Let’s see why.
In modern football, as physical therapy and training are closely linked, the role and importance of rehabilitation trainers is growing. No matter how great a coach may come up with, it is of no use if the player’s body does not follow. Since it is directly related to health, it is inevitable to be sensitive. In addition, the areas of the attending physician, rehabilitation trainer, and physical trainer each have their own specialties, but are closely related to each other, so there are frequent conflicts of opinion depending on the point of view. This is the background that Europe’s leading prestigious teams combine medicine and physical therapy, as well as physiology, nutrition, exercise dynamics, pharmacology, psychology, and data analysis experts into the sports science team to demonstrate ‘teamwork’.
‘Trust’ and ‘rappo formation’ are essential. The same is true between a team and a national team that share one player. In 2009, ahead of the World Cup in South Africa, Manchester United, which was reluctant to select Park Ji-sung, who was suffering from a knee injury, dispatched a physical trainer during the training period for the national team. It may be unpleasant for the Football Association’s mandatory team. In the case of Son Heung-min, who was seriously injured with a broken bone around his eye just before this tournament, the association and Tottenham took the form of close consultations, but it is known that there was not a little friction due to information imbalance. European clubs, which spend hundreds of billions of won, up to trillions of dollars annually, continue to develop by investing generously in the field of sports science, while in the Football Association, which has been on a budget of about 100 billion won for several years, related investments are also stagnant. The gap is getting wider, and the ‘wall of distrust’ is getting higher and higher.
The noise was constant at every major competition. Just before the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the attending physician’s belated response to yellow fever injections was on the cutting board, and during the 2019 Asian Cup, problems with the selection method of the attending physician and the treatment of duty trainers emerged one after another. All of these results were below expectations. The Association has also taken this issue seriously. That’s why the ‘Soccer Science Team’ was launched. After organizing a related team under the Power Reinforcement Office, we promoted job expertise, fairness in selection, and improvement in treatment. If the soccer science team, which was launched so ambitiously, did its job, the 2701 incident could have been prevented.
This is a ‘comprehensive set’ caused by the intertwining of the structural problems described above. Already, some players did not trust the medical team leader, who had been disputed about fairness from the time of recruitment. The team leader is a ‘veteran’ with more than 20 years of experience and is regarded as the best expert in Korea, but trust once broken is not easily restored. After risking his life and life as an athlete, he tried to leave his body to someone he could trust, and the space ‘2701’ was created that way. There was no official support from the association, and the players contributed hundreds of millions of won for additional expenses. And the association’s medical team, including the attending physician, and ‘No. 2701’ were at odds. The association failed to intervene and hid behind the ‘principle’. The reason why we were able to achieve the results of the round of 16 in this tournament was possible because the official and informal treatment rooms did their best in their respective positions. At least when it comes to athlete treatment, everyone was of one mind. 토토사이트
The greatest responsibility for recurring problems lies with Chairman Chung Mong-gyu. The Football Association is criticized for taking a step back in administrative power after carrying out an organizational reorganization led by Chairman Chung last year. The FA Cup, the 23-year-old national team, and the A national team continue to make administrative mistakes that are embarrassing to enumerate. The soccer science team described earlier also disappeared from the organization chart around this time. As sports science develops, the player management system becomes more specialized and subdivided, and the level of demand from players will increase. Chairman Chung Mong-gyu is responsible for improving structural problems, integrating conflicts, and presenting future-oriented solutions.
The personal trainer’s certification issue has been raised, but I don’t think this is the essence of the conflict. If he had been judged as ‘unqualified’ because he did not have a ‘certificate’, neither Tottenham nor coach Bento would have entrusted the player to the trainer. The most important thing is that the body care of athletes during the competition should be closely reviewed so that it is done more systematically and scientifically, and it should be taken as an opportunity to develop.
(Planning: Jeong Seong-jin / Video coverage: Hong Jong-soo / Editing: Lee Hye-rim / Design: Chae Ji-woo / Production: D Contents Planning Department)