With promotion ambitious but possible, Gimpo FC gets K League 1 license

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With promotion ambitious but possible, Gimpo FC gets K League 1 license

Published: 14 Oct. 2024, 15:44 Updated: 14 Oct. 2024, 16:57

PAIK JI-HWAN
paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr

Gimpo FC, in green, play the K League promotion-relegation playoff against Gangwon FC at Gimpo Solteo Football Field in Gimpo, Gyeonggi on Dec. 6, 2023. [NEWS1]

K League 2 club Gimpo FC obtained a K League 1 license that makes the team eligible to play in the top tier, the K League announced Monday.

With the license, Gimpo can compete in the top flight for the first time, where a maximum of three K League 2 teams can earn promotion to every season.

The license comes after the club expanded its home stadium to a 10,000-seat capacity this year and met requirements across five areas: sports, facilities, personnel administration, judicial affairs and finance.

Gimpo, founded in 2013, competed as an amateur club in the depths of the league system in K3 until the end of the 2019 season. The club turned semi-pro that year, playing in a more formally organized K3 League until 2021, when it turned fully professional and joined the K League 2 ahead of the 2022 season.

In just two years, the plucky upstarts from a small Seoul suburb have rapidly risen up the table, finishing eighth in its debut season and guaranteed a top five spot this year, giving them an outside chance of entering the K League 1 just three seasons after going pro.

As things stand at the moment, however, promotion for Gimpo to the K League 1 for the 2025 season seems out of reach.

The club sit in eight place in the 13-team table as of Monday, with the K League 2 season running through early November.

While a maximum of three K League 2 teams can advance to the K League 1 every year, only one spot is guaranteed. The winner of the K League 2 is automatically promoted to the K League 1, from which the 12th-place team is sent down to replace them. The second-place team in the K League 2 plays the 11th-place team in the K League 1, with the winner of that game playing the next season in the top tier.

As if that isn't complicated enough, the fifth- and fourth-place K League 2 teams then play each other, with the winner then facing the third-place finisher. The winner of that game plays the 10th-place K League 1 team in yet another playoff, with the winner of that game also playing the next season in the top tier.

Gimpo next face Chungbuk Cheongju FC on Saturday.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]