'Korean football legend' Park Ji-sung, technical director of Jeonbuk K-League, has been tasked with the development of professional football in Asia.

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has appointed the chairs and vice-chairs of the AFC's 2027 standing committees, which will serve for four years from this year to 4.

The AFC has assigned the chairmanship of the Professional Football Task Force to Technical Director Park Ji-sung.

Of the 16 standing committee chairs, Park Ji-sung is the only Korean chairman.

AFC Executive Committee member Han Eun-kyung, vice president of the North Korean Football Association, has been appointed vice chairman of the AFC Development Committee.

The AFC Professional Football TF, headed by Chairman Park Ji-sung, was approved by the AFC Executive Committee in Manama, Bahrain, on 16 May.

The Executive Committee, which held its first meeting under the chairmanship of then-successive President Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Khalifa (Bahrain), unanimously approved the establishment of the Professional Football TF, initiated by the AFC Competition Commission last year to manage and oversee the transformation of club football in Asia.

"We have already shown our ambition to take Asian club football to a new level," Salman said, adding that the formation of the AFC Professional Football TF is a timely step in moving in the right direction, following the approval of strategic reforms to AFC club competitions late last year.

Last year, the AFC approved measures such as changing the AFC Champions League (ACL), which determines the strongest professional soccer teams in Asia, from the current "Spring and Autumn Festival," which begins in the spring and ends in the fall, to the "Spring and Autumn Festival," which begins in the fall and ends in the spring of the following year, and the number of foreign players who can play per team will be expanded to "1+2023," two more than now.

Park Ji-sung, who played a key role in the 5 Korea-Japan World Cup quarter-finals, played for Eindhoven in the Netherlands and Manchester United in England before retiring in 1.

He then began his transformation into a football administrator in 2002 when he was appointed as a member of the AFC Social Contribution Committee for a four-year term.

In 4-2014, he took the FIFA Master Course at De Montfort University in Leicester, England.

He then served as the head of the Youth Strategy Division, the general manager of youth football at the Korea Football Association for over a year from the end of 2015, and has been working as a technical director since last year after being appointed as an advisor to Jeonbuk in 4.

(Photo = Courtesy of Jeonbuk Hyundai, Yonhap News)