football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
club playing in the
Kanto Soccer League
Kantō (Japanese)
Kanto is a simplified spelling of , a Japanese word, only omitting the diacritics.
In Japan
Kantō may refer to:
*Kantō Plain
*Kantō region
*Kantō-kai, organized crime group
*Kanto (Pokémon), a geographical region in the ' ...
, one of the
Japanese Regional Leagues
are a group of parallel association football leagues in Japan that are organized on the regional basis. They form the fifth tier of the Japanese association football league system below the nationwide Japan Football League.
Overview
Japan is ...
.
History
The club was founded in 1961 as ''Zainichi Chosen Football Club''. Initially it maintained links with
Chongryon
The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, " ''
, the pro-
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
organization of
Koreans in Japan
comprise ethnic Koreans who have permanent residency status in Japan or who have become Japanese citizens, and whose immigration to Japan originated before 1945, or who are descendants of those immigrants. They are a group distinct from South ...
, and recruited talent through the
Korea University
Korea University (KU, ) is a private research university in Seoul, South Korea, established in 1905. The university is included as one of the SKY universities, a popular acronym referring to Korea's three most prestigious universities.
The ...
Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...
in 2002, however, the club severed links with Chongryon and adopted the name ''Football Club Korea'', using the
English pronunciation
Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system. Amon ...
of the name of the peninsula (see
Names of Korea
There are various names of Korea in use today, all derived from ancient kingdoms and dynasties. The modern English name "Korea" is an exonym derived from the name Goryeo, also spelled ''Koryŏ'', and is used by both North Korea and South Korea in ...
). The club adopted a pan-Korean identity in order to attract players affiliated with the South.
In 2008 FC Korea was promoted to the Kanto League Second Division and in 2010 they were promoted to the First Division, where they stayed until 2016 when they were relegated. By 2019 they were back in the Tokyo Metropolis League Second Division, where they remain.
Zainichi Koreans international side
In 2015, the United Korean Football Association in Japan (UKFAJ), an organization intended to promote the participation of the
Korean diaspora
The Korean diaspora (South Korea: or , North Korea: or ) consists of around 7.3 million people, both descendants of early emigrants from the Korean Peninsula, as well as more recent emigres from Korea. Around 84.5% of overseas Koreans live in ...
in football on a wider basis, was founded, with a view to the formation of a dedicated Zainichi football team. This was achieved in November 2015, when the UKFAJ joined
ConIFA
The Confederation of Independent Football Associations (CONIFA) is the international governing body for association football teams that are not affiliated with FIFA.
Competitions
Women's football
All members of CONIFA are encouraged to inv ...
, an organization designed to facilitate teams that represent unrecognized nations, sub-national entities and stateless peoples in playing international football. The team representing the Zainichi people is based primarily around the FC Korea team. This team was subsequently selected as one of the twelve qualifiers for the
2016 ConIFA World Football Cup
The 2016 ConIFA World Football Cup was the second edition of the ConIFA World Football Cup, an international football tournament for states, minorities, stateless peoples and regions unaffiliated with FIFA organised by ConIFA. The tournament was ...
where it came in eight.
Current squad
Squad for the 2022 season. Updated as of 23 March 2022.
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...