Korea made 6 billion won from U-20 World Cup

Korean organizers of the FIFA U-20 World Cup said Tuesday they made nearly 6 billion won ($5.2 million) in profit from this year’s youth football tournament.

The local organizing committee for the 2017 U-20 World Cup, led by the Korea Football Association’s president, Chung Mong-gyu, said it generated 24.9 billion won in revenue and spent 19 billion won, resulting in 5.9 billion won in profit.

Korea staged the U-20 World Cup from May 20 to June 11 in six cities. The tournament featured 24 teams, and England was crowned champion after defeating Venezuela.

In their last meeting before disbanding, the organizers decided to use the profit to build a football center for youth players. Korea currently has the National Football Center in Paju, Gyeonggi, but the Korean football community has been pushing for a new facility so that national teams of various age groups can train without getting interrupted by the senior squad’s schedule.

The organizers said that once the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism approves their plan, they will work with the Korea Football Association and government to start the construction of a new center.

The association expects construction will cost around 60 billion won and plans to build it on 330,000 square meters (82 acres) of land near the Seoul metropolitan area. It hopes to see the project completed by 2022.

Korean organizers said their first U-20 World Cup was profitable because they used existing football stadiums without building any new ones. They also secured six local sponsorships and said the tournament’s average attendance was 7,899, higher than that of the previous U-20 World Cup in New Zealand.

The organizers also reported no safety incidents during the event and thanked local authorities and some 1,100 volunteers for their work.

Yonhap