Ahead of the second draft, the LG Twins and Oh Ji-hwan played tricks. I don’t know who became it, but it’s to make the 36th player the 35th protected player.
The second draft system, which was implemented biennially from 2011 to 2019, but abolished in 2021, has been revived. This is because the Futures FA system, introduced in 2021, was abolished in two years because it was not effective.
In the second draft to be held somewhere in Seoul on the 22nd, 10 clubs can bring in players belonging to them, players with training, and players with holding military training, except for 35 protective players from nine other clubs. In his first to third year of joining the professional league, FA (including overseas return FA) players and foreign players are excluded from the nomination list. In other words, they become automatic protectors.
LG used FA, which becomes an automatic protection player, as a trick to put even one more person on the protection list. In addition to Kim Min-sung, Lim Chan-kyu, and Ham Deok-ju, who have acquired FA qualifications, Oh Ji-hwan, who has already agreed to a six-year multi-year contract, has also applied for FA. 스포츠토토
This is because if Oh Ji-hwan becomes an FA player, he can protect the other by creating a spot in the protected player (35 players). LG, which has the thickest depth in the league, used expedients for club selfishness in the second draft to boost player movement and level up the league.
It is not a violation of KBO regulations. However, in January, LG officially announced that it had already agreed to a six-year, multi-year contract with Oh Ji-hwan. He also left a photo of Twins CEO Kim In-seok and Oh Ji-hwan shaking hands with a bright smile.
On Jan. 19, 2023, LG announced, “We have agreed to a multi-year contract with Oh Ji-hwan for a total of 12.4 billion won (guaranteed amount of 10 billion won) for six years from 2024. Oh Ji-hwan signed a four-year FA contract for 4 billion won between 2020 and 2023, and will re-acquire his FA qualification at the end of the 2023 season. LG tied Oh Ji-hwan to a multi-year contract before he entered the FA market.
However, ahead of the second draft, LG had Oh Ji-hwan, who had already signed a multi-year contract, apply for FA. Although they agreed to a multi-year contract, the contract between the club and the player is submitted as a one-year contract every year. There was a loophole in the system that allowed Oh Ji-hwan to apply for FA.
This is called trickery and expediency. It refers to a method that is legal but most people do not readily accept, which is clearly not correct, but illegal is cleverly avoided, or an unusual or abnormal method is used to achieve the purpose.
Other players, such as Park Se-woong (Lotte), Koo Ja-wook (Samsung), Park Jong-hoon (Samsung), Moon Seung-won (SSG), and Kim Tae-gun (KIA), who signed multi-year contracts before acquiring FA qualifications, did not apply for FA.
Except for LG, the rest of the clubs handled things in a common-sense way instead of a “trick.” As long as these loopholes are revealed, KBO will have to set multi-year contract rules in detail.