FC Seoul fined for filling empty stadium seats with sex dolls
FC Seoul has provided a cautionary tale for sports organizations around the globe slowly returning to action that filling the stands for an event during the coronavirus pandemic isn’t as simple as propping up a few mannequins or cardboard cutouts.
The team in South Korea’s K soccer league was fined $81, 454.45 (100 million won) for using lifesize sex dolls to help fill some of the empty seats at Seoul World Cup Stadium over the weekend.
FC Seoul officials have apologized profusely since inflategate began to blow up on Sunday, and say sparking the first sports scandal of the COVID-19 era was all a terrible misunderstanding.
Club officials said they had failed to check the shipping order sent by the supplier and were completely unaware the 25 dolls were “adult products,” according to Reuters.
But there clearly was a breach in social distancing protocol to get FC Seoul’s air-filled fan substitutes ready for their big debut with the 2016 league champions. Team employees dressed some of the dolls in FC Seoul gear, and other dolls had banners placed in their inflateable arms. All the dolls had masks.
The controversy is an embarrassing PR blow to the K-League, which was the first major soccer league in the world to resume playing and as one of the few live sports options, is basking in a strong world-wide TV following.
This game was televised, of course, and it turns out that some sharp-eyed fans sparked something of a social media frenzy after noticing that something seemed amiss with the “crowd” scattered around the 66,000-seat stadium. But the clues weren’t terribly difficult to follow. The Yonhap news agency reported that one banner showed the names of an adult toy manufacturer and of models who had inspired those dolls.
In handing down the punishment on Wednesday, the K League admonished the club for not being able to tell the sex dolls apart from ordinary mannequins. The league also suggested the club knew about the issue before the match and had plenty of time to deflate inflategate before it even started.
“The disciplinary committee decided to take heavy disciplinary action considering the graveness of the incident, caused by the ‘real doll’, that has greatly insulted and hurt female and family fans and to prevent similar incidents going forward,” K League said in a statement.
In the end, the dolls did appear to raise their team’s spirits. FC Seoul emerged with a 1-0 win over Gwangju.
“We apologize deeply to all those concerned about the unfortunate situation that occurred,” the club said. “We will review our internal procedures to ensure this does not happen again.”