National Assembly drops Son Heung-min hearing subpoena; commentator Park Moon-sung calls it 'the right call'

Football commentator Park Moon-sung has welcomed the National Assembly's decision to withdraw its request for Son Heung-min (LAFC) and Hwang Hee-chan (Wolverhampton Wanderers) to appear as witnesses at a hearing on the Korea Football Association, calling it "the right call."

Park wrote on his social media account Friday that withdrawing the request for Son and Hwang to appear as reference witnesses was "the right decision," adding, "Well done. Thank you all. I'm grateful."

Earlier, Park had criticized the summons on his YouTube channel "Dalsune Live" on Thursday, saying, "Get a grip. Who came up with this? There's simply no way they can appear." He pointed to Son's schedule: Son plays in the LA Derby on the 18th and has a match against Salt Lake on the 23rd. "Are you telling him to fly over on the 22nd — just one day — to appear at a hearing?" he said.

"Without even checking the facts, what exactly are you asking Son Heung-min to do? This is why it looks like nothing more than a show," he said. "Do you want to ask him how he felt about not starting?"

Park also warned that calling the players would undermine the hearing itself. "If it comes to this, the hearing becomes a joke," he said. "Everything gets buried under the Son Heung-min issue, and we never get to the real substance of what we need to address."

The National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee voted in a plenary session to hold a hearing on KFA affairs at 10 a.m. on July 22, with 13 witnesses and 10 reference witnesses initially set to appear.

After the controversy erupted, Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Lim O-gyeong withdrew the applications to have Son and Hwang appear as reference witnesses.

Lim said she had "withdrawn the reference witness applications after comprehensively considering the party's views, the players' match schedules and their positions." She added that she had originally sought their testimony because "reform that does not reflect the voices of players on the ground is meaningless," and she had wanted to hear from active players who had experienced the KFA, the national team and overseas football systems firsthand.

"This was not meant to burden the players, but a decision to create a better hearing for the development of Korean football," she added.