The Korea Baseball Softball Association suspended the coach and two players of Seoul's Paejae High School baseball team, along with the umpire who worked the game, over a cheer that evoked the 1980 Gwangju democratization movement.
The association said on the 2nd that its 12th sports fair play committee, convened at the Olympic Center on the 1st, imposed one-month suspensions on the two Paejae High players who led the chant disparaging the opposing team and on the coach responsible for supervising them.
The association said it weighed several factors in setting the penalties: Paejae High had already been disciplined at the team level, the players had shown deep remorse and delivered a sincere apology to Gwangju Jeil High School, and Gwangju Jeil had accepted the apology and asked for leniency.
The association had earlier barred Paejae High from national tournaments for six months, a penalty later reduced to one month after a review by the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee's sports fair play committee. As a result, Paejae High competed last month in the Bonghwangdaegi National High School Baseball Tournament, the final national event of the year.
Separately from the disciplinary action, the two Paejae High students who led the chant "Let's go to Starbucks" during the game have told the school they will stop taking part in baseball team activities, according to the association.
The association also suspended the game's chief umpire for one month for failing to intervene, saying the official allowed play to continue without appropriate sanctions even as the inappropriate chants persisted. A Gwangju Jeil coach who shouted abusive language and profanities toward the opposing dugout while protesting was reprimanded, with the circumstances of the violation taken into account.
"It is deeply regrettable that such an unsavory incident occurred in student baseball," KBSA President Yang Hae-young said, pledging to prevent a recurrence.
The association said it will expand campaigns to discourage inappropriate chants at ballparks and draw up a code of conduct for teams that will apply from the 2027 national tournament season.
