Jeju-Based KRA Judo Team Faces Possible Closure, Threatening the Powerhouse That Produced Four Olympic Gold Medalists

【Financial News Jeju=Reporter Yong-bok Jeong】 The Jeju-based KRA Judo Team is facing possible closure at the end of the year. The prestigious team has produced four Olympic gold medalists—Jeon Ki-young, Lee Won-hee, Choi Min-ho and Kim Jae-bum—and, along with the KRA Table Tennis Team, is under review for possible closure due to worsening business conditions.
According to the office of Moon Dae-rim of the Democratic Party of Korea and KRA on the 11th, KRA informed the leadership of its judo and table tennis teams on Aug. 6 that it was considering wrapping up operations for both teams by the end of this year.
The team leadership says it was effectively notified that the teams would be disbanded. After controversy erupted, claims also emerged that KRA had asked the teams to submit plans for sharply reducing next year’s budgets.
However, the teams’ closure has not been finalized. KRA acknowledges that it is considering disbanding both teams because of management difficulties, but says no final decision has been made.
The key questions are whether objective grounds have been established for dismantling corporate sports teams with roughly 30 years of history, and whether measures have been prepared to protect the athletes and coaches.
The KRA Judo Team is regarded as one of South Korea’s leading corporate judo teams. It has produced four Olympic gold medalists: Jeon Ki-young at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Lee Won-hee at the 2004 Athens Olympics, Choi Min-ho at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and Kim Jae-bum at the 2012 London Olympics.
The team is currently led by coach Kim Jae-bum, a gold medalist at the 2012 London Olympics. The official KRA roster also includes Kim Hwa-su, Kim Se-heon, Jeong Beom-seok, Yang Ji-hyeok, Kim Woo-gun, Kim Tae-yoon, Kim Jae-min, Park Jun-hyeon and Woo Jeong-myeong.

The judo team has represented Jeju at the Korean National Sports Festival and contributed to the competitiveness of Jeju sports. The controversy has emerged just before the 107th Korean National Sports Festival, which will be held in Jeju from Oct. 16, raising concerns about repercussions for the local sports community.
The athletes’ performance and career prospects ahead of the Asian Games are also at stake. Kim Jae-min of the judo team is scheduled to compete at the 20th Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya in 2026, while Kim Se-heon is participating in national team training.
The timing of a possible closure is also sensitive for the athletes. The team says that if it disappears at the end of the year, it will be difficult for athletes to find transfer opportunities because the rosters of other corporate teams will largely have been finalized by then.
Some athletes joined within the past year or two and have contracts running through 2027. The team says measures are therefore needed regarding contract guarantees, employment succession and transfer assistance.
Another source of controversy is that KRA had emphasized the teams’ public role until recently. In its 2024 Sustainability Report, KRA cited support for less popular sports, balanced development of Korean sports and enhancing Korea’s standing internationally through participation in international competitions as reasons for operating its judo team, men’s and women’s table tennis teams, and equestrian team.
KRA also explained that the athletes do more than compete: they participate in one-on-one lessons and mentoring for young people, as well as volunteer skills-sharing activities for local sports enthusiasts.
The table tennis team is also one of Korea’s leading corporate sports teams. The women’s team has been operated under coach Hyun Jung-hwa, a gold medalist at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, while the men’s team has developed athletes through domestic and international competitions and overseas leagues.

On the 8th, Rep. Moon Dae-rim met with the leadership of KRA’s judo and table tennis teams at the National Assembly and heard their views on the closure controversy and the athletes’ employment and contract issues.
Moon believes it is necessary to examine whether there were problems in the process by which an institution that had been strengthening its teams by recruiting new athletes until recently began considering their closure just months later.
In particular, he plans to verify during the parliamentary audit how performance evaluations were conducted for each sport, how much the budget would actually be reduced by disbanding the two teams, and whether measures have been prepared for athletes and coaches whose contracts have not yet expired.
The issue also coincides with Jeju’s campaign to attract KRA’s headquarters. In preparation for the government’s second round of relocating public institutions to regional areas, Jeju has designated KRA as a key target and is promoting its domestic racehorse production, Let's Run Park Jeju, KRA Jeju Ranch, and its horse-industry education and research infrastructure as reasons to move the headquarters there.
While discussions are under way about linking KRA’s institutional functions with Jeju’s horse industry through the headquarters relocation, the existing Jeju-based sports teams are facing a crossroads over their survival.
Rep. Moon said, "Athlete teams operated by public institutions are public assets that have protected the ecosystems of less popular sports and the foundation of corporate sports. They must not be disbanded unilaterally without objective performance evaluations and measures to protect athletes and coaches."


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