The Deutsche Fußball Liga has signed a partnership agreement with the KFA until 2028, ensuring that Germany becomes a top development destination for South Korean footballing talent.
| Lee Jae-sung, one of South Korea’s top football players, celebrates a goal for 1. FSV Mainz 05, 14. December 2024. | (Photo by Alex Grimm / Getty Images) |
The Deutsche Fußball Liga has officially signed a long-term partnership contract with the Korea Football Association, strengthening ties between Germany and South Korea in football, and improving the development of South Korean football in general.
Tomoi Kouchi, the main representative for the East Asian region at Bundesliga International GmbH, announced the agreement this morning. This is part of the East Asian section of the Bundesliga Dream talent development program, which involves associations from around the world being able to grow youth football directly through the Bundesliga.
The deal was supported by two clubs, 1. FSV Mainz 05 and Hamburger SV. Mainz currently have Lee Jae-sung and Hong Hyun-seok in their team, and also had Cha Du-ri and Koo Ja-cheol in their squads in decades prior; HSV saw both Son Heung-min and Hwang Hee-chan play in their squads between 2010 and 2020.
Both Mainz and HSV will be bringing some of the top Korean talents to their facilities for two weeks each, allowing them to practice with the Bundesliga youth teams and learn from German coaches. Mainz and HSV will then select the players that stood out to them from these sessions, and give them the opportunity to join the clubs’ training camps longer-term, according to Hong Seok-jun of SBS.
This is not the first time that Mainz have been directly involved in Korean talent development, as they hosted the “Golden Eleven” invitational training camp in 2021, where eleven Korean U12 players took part in training alongside the Mainz youth sides, and took part in friendlies against other U12 teams.
In the terms of the agreement, the South Korean U17 national team will also be training at state-of-the-art German facilities ahead of the upcoming 2025 FIFA U20 World Cup, taking place in Qatar in November.
Kevin Sim, General Manager of Bundesliga Asia, which oversees Bundesliga operations throughout the continent, and Kim Jeong-bae, Executive Vice President of the KFA, signed the agreement in Seoul; the current deal is until 2028, with an option to extend it to 2030 if the two parties agree to continue.
