Calls grow to scrap arts, sports military service exemptions amid Asian Games controversy

Calls to overhaul South Korea's military service exemption system for athletes and artists are mounting amid a controversy over the conduct and remarks of some members of the national football team, who won gold at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games and received exemptions as a result.

Attention is turning to whether the arts and sports exemption regime — introduced in 1973 under the Yushin system — is now headed for its first major overhaul in 53 years.

Ahn Gyu-baek, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker who served as the first defense minister under the Lee Jae Myung administration, said Monday in a phone interview with Yonhap that abolishing the exemption system "is something that should have already been done."

Ahn had previously called for scrapping the exemption regime in 2020, when he served on the National Assembly's Defense Committee.

"When South Korea was barely known to the world, we gave those benefits to encourage athletes and artists to raise the country's profile — but now that should be replaced with financial compensation," he said. "With troop numbers reaching a cliff, we need to eliminate the exemption system entirely, covering both the arts and sports."

Democratic Party lawmaker Jeong Il-young wrote on Facebook that while "winning a gold medal at the Asian Games is a remarkable achievement and deserves applause, congratulating someone on a gold medal and granting a military service exemption are two separate issues," adding that "standards must change as the times change."

Another Democratic Party lawmaker said the exemption system "has been around so long that much of it no longer fits public sentiment," and that "the Asian Games no longer carries the same prestige it once did, so it is time to take a closer look."

Calls for reform also emerged from the People Power Party.

People Power Party Chief Spokesperson Park Sung-hoon said in a statement that "this controversy should not be dismissed as mere slip-of-the-tongue remarks by a few players," and that the party must examine "whether the current arts and sports service personnel system is in line with the times and public common sense."

Park added that "criteria should be redesigned by comprehensively weighing the level of competition and international standing by sport, and if the system is to be retained, the corresponding service obligations and public accountability must also be strengthened."

Yoo Yong-won, also a member of the Defense Committee, said on BBS Radio that "shouldn't we now be moving toward reducing or abolishing the exemptions?" He noted that "a degree of consensus that this issue needs to be properly addressed also formed in the Defense Committee during the last national audit."