K-League side FC Seoul fined after filling stadium with sex dolls

The K-League has fined FC Seoul 100 million won ($81,500) after the club filled their stadium with sex dolls during Sunday's home match.

The Korean top flight is back up and running after its start was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but games are taking place without fans present. 

FC Seoul looked to remedy that emptiness during Sunday's clash against Gwangju, filling the stands with mannequins to provide some semblance of atmosphere. 

Unfortunately, the club failed to realize that the dolls watching on were not of the ordinary variety, but were indeed toys made for adults only. 

"The disciplinary committee decided to take heavy disciplinary action considering the graveness of the incident, caused by the 'real doll', that has greatly insulted and hurt female and family fans and to prevent similar incidents going forward," the K-League said in a statement.

The Korean top-flight added that FC Seoul had made "a serious mistake" by not removing the dolls before the match began.

FC Seoul has already apologised for the mix-up, calling it an "inexcusable mistake" while attempting to provide clarity as to how it occurred.

"We would like to apologise to our fans. We’re genuinely sorry to our fans about the installation of the mannequins at our game on May 17," the club wrote in a message posted on Instagram.

"We confirmed from the start that the mannequins we installed in the stands had no relation to the adult toys, even though they do indeed resemble real humans. The mannequins are manufactured by a company named Dalkom, and they informed us that the mannequins are designed for displaying apparel and fashion products.

"We confirmed with them on numerous occasions to make sure that the mannequins are not adult toys.

"However, Dalkom has been distributing some of the mannequin products to another business named Soros, and in the process of return and exchange of the products between them, the installation at our stadium included some products with messages in text that are related to the adult toys.

"That was a problem on our employees who couldn’t check every detail of everything that was installed. That is an inexcusable mistake on our part.

"Our intention from the start was to provide even a small entertainment after it was decided that the games would be hosted behind closed doors due to coronavirus.

"Regardless of that, we would like to apologise once again to everyone who loves and supports FC Seoul. We will be holding further discussions on how we can review potential problems in similar matters. We will put forth our due diligence to prevent such issues in the future."