A spokesman for the KWFF claimed he could not provide further details of the letter, but an official for the Seoul Metropolitan Government, which owns Seoul City Amazones, the player's club, called the request a "thinly-veiled jab" designed to stoke questions about the player's gender.

Park scored 19 times this season, a big factor in her Amazones' surprise second place finish in the WK League.

The Korean Football Association (KFA) claimed Park, who represented her country in the 2003 World Cup in the United States and the 2004 Olympics in Athens, took and passed a gender test when she was 15.

This is not the first occasion Park has had her gender questioned with the Chinese manager demanding she undergo a test prior to the 2010 Asian Football Confederation Women's Asian Cup.

This led to Park not being named on the final squad going into the tournament.

The gender claims came after Park Eun-seon guided Seoul City Amazones to a second place finish in the WK-League, scoring 19 goals along the way



Park, who is 180 centimetres tall and weighs 74 kilograms, has been playing professional football for years and says the controversy is groundless.

"I can't believe this is happening again," she wrote on her Facebook page.

"I have gone through the gender examination thing several times.

"I did it in a World Cup, in an Olympics and in several others and there were no problems.

"I did it when I was young and I was mortified by them."

After news of the boycott threat emerged this week, the six coaches were the target of a social media backlash and tried to downplay the matter as a joke made at a private meeting.

At a news conference held at Seoul City Hall, however, irate Amazones coach Seo Jung-ho lashed out at his rivals, claiming they were undermining Korean women's football.

"This should not have happened," he said.

"It is just so terrible to see the coaches, who should be mustering wisdom for the future of Korean women's football, colluding to hurt one of our best players."

"Excessive competition, selfishness and sexist insults [from the coaches] are plaguing this young player.

"She is older now and managing the situation in a more mature way than before.

"It looks like she is immune to it."

Local media reported that six of the WK-League's seven coaches held an informal meeting on October 19 and subsequently filed a complaint with the KFA that if Park did not take a gender test they would boycott next year's competition.

The floor leader for the Democratic Party in South Korea, Jun Byung-hun, has called for Korea's National Human Rights Commission to look into the matter.

Lee Sung-kyun, coach of Suwon, has allegedly resigned over the incident telling Reuters that he had done it to apologise to Park.

But he maintained there was no real threat of a boycott and the issue of a gender test was merely to get her back into the national team.

"I feel so sorry that it got leaked and spread in a distorted manner," he told Reuters.

"All of the coaches there that day were talking about how sad it is for us and Park, who is one of the best players in the world, not to make it to the national team since 2005.

"We were making a proposal to the KFA to make better use of her for women's football.

"Then we thought, if she makes it back to the national team another country might file a complaint again about her gender identity like China did in 2010.

"So we were merely saying it'd be better for her to take a gender verification test in Korea in case it becomes an international issue."

"During lunch I tendered my resignation to apologise to Park for this matter."

South Africas Caster Semenya faced similar accusations after she won the 800m title at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin





Kim Joon-soo, secretary general of Seoul Sports Council, claimed the matter was no joke at the news conference at the City Hall.

"This is a serious violation of human rights," he said.

"The coaches later played down their statement saying they were making a joke at an informal meeting but I have here the official document they submitted to the KFA.

"We have no intention of accepting the gender verification test just to stop the boycott, but if it is needed for Park to compete in an international game and under specific regulations of FIFA, we will consider it."

This is not the first incident where gender allegations have been made against an athlete.

South African middle distance runner Caster Semenya was subjected to a gender investigation after winning gold in the 800 metres at the 2009 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in Berlin, Germany.

Also, India's Santhi Soundarajan was stripped of her 800m silver medal after failing a gender test at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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