Posts share altered news footage of South Korean coach after dismal World Cup exit
- Published on July 1, 2026 at 10:25
- 3 min read
- By Grace MOON, AFP South Korea
South Korean football fans directed their anger over the national team's disappointing showing at the 2026 World Cup at coach Hong Myung-bo, but posts claiming a news channel blurred his face in their reports are using altered footage. A review of the report by KBS News shows the coach -- who has since resigned -- was not blurred or obscured in the coverage. A spokesperson for the broadcaster also told AFP they had never applied a blur effect to Hong in their reports.
"Hong Myung-bo should be completely driven out of Korean football now," says a Korean-language Threads post shared on June 28, 2026.
The post includes an image and two videos, purportedly showing how KBS News blurred or obscured Hong's face during a news broadcast.
"KBS applied a mosaic effect to Hong Myung-bo after the team's elimination before the Round of 32," reads Korean-language superimposed text on the attached image.
Similar images and clips were also shared elsewhere on social media in multiple languages, including English, French, Japanese and Spanish.
"That's a pretty intense reaction from broadcast media," says a comment on one of the posts, while another asks why there was a "need to humiliate the coach".
The posts circulated after South Korea's dismal performance at the 2026 World Cup, where the team lost two of its three group-stage matches and failed to squeeze into the knockout rounds as one of the top eight third-place finishers (archived link).
The team had been expected to do well, with the squad featuring several internationally established players dubbed a "golden generation" by local media.
The early exit prompted Hong to resign as head coach, cast doubt over the international future of captain Son Heung-min and drew swift condemnation from President Lee Jae Myung.
"When loyalty and factionalism are valued over competence, and incompetent people are appointed to leadership positions, the outcome is all but inevitable," Lee wrote in an X post on June 28 (archived link). The president also apologised to the public for the "profound disappointment".
While much of the anger has been directed at Hong -- who also oversaw South Korea's group-stage exit at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil during his first spell as national team coach -- KBS News did not blur or obscure his face in their broadcasts (archived link).
Hong's resignation was widely covered by South Korean media, many of which also included unblurred footage of him speaking at the same press conference (archived here and here).
Altered clip
A keyword search led to similar footage used in a June 27 KBS News 9 report -- but with Hong's face unblurred (archived link).
The report shows Hong telling reporters that he can not "easily pinpoint the reason" for the team's poor performance against South Africa, referring to South Korea's final group-stage match, which ended in a 1-0 loss.
A review of other KBS News broadcasts related to Hong's resignation that aired on June 28 and June 29 also shows Hong's face is unobscured (archived here and here).
Moreover, the rectangular outline of the mosaic covering Hong's face in the falsely shared images and videos differs from the softer blur applied in other KBS broadcasts (archived here and here).
A spokesperson for KBS told AFP on June 29 that "KBS has never applied a mosaic blur effect" to Hong's face in its news reports.
AFP has fact-checked several other false claims related to the World Cup.
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