'$20,000 for a bad attitude': Former footballer goes viral discussing K League fines

Former midfielder Rashid Mahazi has gone viral on Tiktok after sharing his experience playing for Incheon United in the K League, including one incident where a manager wanted the players to sign a mandated fines list with extremely high penalties

Former Incheon United player Rashid Mahazi speaks in a video shared on his own Tiktok account on Jan. 6. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Former Australian midfielder Rashid Mahazi has gone viral on Tiktok after sharing his experience playing for Incheon United in Korea's K League, including one incident where an incoming manager wanted the players to sign a mandated fines list with extremely high penalties.

In a video shared on Mahazi’s personal Tiktok account on Jan. 6 and viewed over 455,000 times as of press time Monday, Mahazi said that a manager he met during his time at Incheon — playing for the club from 2019 to 2020 — removed the club's existing fines list and ordered all players to sign a list he had created that included penalties like paying $2,000 for walking with a cellphone, $10,000 for being late to training and $20,000 for having a bad attitude during training.

Fines lists are a common feature at football clubs around the world and typically require players to pay small fines for specific infractions, like being late for training. These lists are often managed by the team's captains and are generally seen as a bit of fun, with the money often going toward a night out at the end of the season.

According to Mahazi, the manager in question joined Incheon during the middle of a difficult season, likely indicating it was current Incheon manager Jo Sung-hwan, who joined halfway through the 2020 campaign when Mahazi was at the club.

“All of use foreigners are sitting in the back just going ‘what in the world is going on here’,” Mahazi said in his video. “All the Koreans just get up and start signing it [the fines list]. We [foreign players] never ended up signing it.

“That is a story of Korea. Crazy place. Beautiful. Love that place, but crazy.”

Fines at some clubs have been implemented by the managers in the past. Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, famous for his no-nonsense attitude to the dressing room, reportedly once fined Cristiano Ronaldo £8,000 for sending a text message during training. Earlier in his career, Ferguson is said to have even fined Aberdeen's John Hewitt £50 for overtaking him on a public road.

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