South Korean football club, FC Seoul has apologized after using sex dolls to fill their empty stadiums during a match on Sunday.
Earlier this month the K-League became the first major football league to hold matches since the start of the pandemic, however the matches have been played in an empty stadium due to social distancing rules.
In an attempt to make the game more lively, FC Seoul tried filling their home ground with mannequins. But the move took a drastic turn after it was noticed that the mannequins are actually sex dolls.
FC Seoul insisted the mannequins used in the absence of fans, who are banned because of the coronavirus had “no connection to sex toys”.
But some of the mannequins, used for Sunday’s game against Gwangju FC, wore T-shirts with the logo of SoloS, a sex toy seller.
The mannequins’ manufacturer told the BBC they had apologised to FC Seoul. But they also reiterated that the dolls were merely “premium mannequins”.
In total, there were 30 mannequins – 28 of them female, and two of them male.
The company who supplied the controversial mannequins, Dalcom said the adverts came from a sex toy company who placed orders with Dalcom, and wanted to take pictures of the mannequins before the game.
“They were supposed to take all the logos down before the game started,” Dalcom director Cho Young-june told the BBC. “But there were several hairbands and logos left to be caught by public eye.”
FC Seoul official Lee Ji-hoon told the BBC it didn’t do a background check on Dalcom, and didn’t realise they worked in the sex industry.
Mr Lee admitted he thought the dolls looked “very human” – but said it didn’t even enter his mind that they could be sex toys.
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In a statement on social media, FC Seoul said: “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,
“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.”