The South Korean sports ministry plans to meet the International Olympic Committee next week with two leaders of local sports governing bodies at odds over their merger, a government official said Friday.
An official at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports told Yonhap News Agency that the ministry is preparing to send its vice minister Kim Chong, along with the Korean Olympic Committee head Kim Jung-haeng and the Korea Council of Sport for All chief Kang Young-joong, to Lausanne, Switzerland, to lay out the merger plans of the two bodies. The officials are expected to leave for Switzerland as early as this weekend, and the meeting with the IOC is expected to be held Monday.
The move comes after the IOC sent a letter that suggested all parties involved, including the South Korean government, have a meeting at the IOC headquarters on the merger, which the world's Olympic body wants to see after the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.
"We thought it will be better to send chiefs of the two sports bodies and vice minister Kim to have a meeting with the IOC instead of low-level officials," said a sports ministry official who asked not to be named.
To ensure an efficient control of the country's sports and break the wall between elite and everyday sports, the South Korean government has pushed the KOC, which oversees the country's sports in general and premier athletes for competitive events, and the KOCOSA, which aims to promote daily sports and a healthy lifestyle for every South Korean, to be a single entity. It has been tentatively named the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee.
Under the revised law, the KOC and the KOCOSA have a March 27 deadline for their merger. But according to the sports ministry, the IOC sent a letter to the KOC on Wednesday and recommended the two bodies postpone the move, preferably until after the Rio Games in August.
The ministry has said that the IOC's letter will not affect the merger schedule. The founders' meeting for the combined sports governing body is slated for March 2. The election for the KSOC president is scheduled to be held in late October. The KOC's Kim and the KOCOSA's Kang will be co-presidents until then, should the two sides merge by March 27.
"What the IOC said in its letter should be seen as a recommendation," the sports ministry official said Thursday. "Since the domestic law precedes the IOC's recommendation, the merger should go on as scheduled."
The KOC, South Korea's coordinator of the Olympic activities, has been reluctant about the merger, though it has agreed to merge with the less popular KOCOSA. While the debate of who gets a greater share and more control of the KSOC is ongoing, the KOC has said it wants to delay the merger, since the legal articles of the KSOC need IOC approval and the process can interrupt its preparation for the Rio Games. (Yonhap)
