SEOUL– The struggling South Korean football club Suwon Samsung Bluewings announced Friday head coach Park Kun-ha has resigned in the midst of a seven-match winless skid.
The K League 1 club said Park, a club icon for Suwon in the 1990s and early 2000s, offered to step down from his post to hold himself accountable for the recent slide and that the management accepted that decision.
Park had been coaching Suwon since September 2020. He had spent his entire 11-year playing career with Suwon, and following his retirement in 2006, served as an assistant coach and a youth club manager for Suwon for four years.
After coaching stints in China, Park took Suwon’s reins late in the 2020 season and rescued the club from the relegation zone. In 2021, Suwon finished in sixth place.
But nine matches into 2022, Suwon are once again in the relegation zone, sitting second-to-last in 11th place with seven points on one win, four draws and four losses. They are tied for the fewest goals in the K League 1 with seven.
Former Daegu FC head coach Lee Byung-geun will soon be formally announced as Park’s successor. Lee was teammates with Park at Suwon from 1996 to 2006. Lee was Suwon’s top assistant in 2013 and caretaker boss for a month in 2018.
Lee served in the same caretaker role for Daegu FC in 2020 before being promoted to the full-time status in 2021. Daegu finished a club-best third place in 2021 and were the runners-up at the FA Cup. Despite these accomplishments, Daegu FC parted ways with Lee in December, and the 48-year-old will return to his old stomping ground.
Source: Yonhap News Agency