Martial Arts Professional Magazine

Seoul, South Korea…A Korean newspaper recently reported that the International Taekwondo Federation became a front for the North Korean government more than 20 years ago, training and disguising spies as TKD masters, in an attempt to assassinate the South Korean president of the 1980s.

According to the story, Choi Jung-hwa, son of the late Choi Hong-hi who founded the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF) in 1966, claims that he was recruited and was part of a plot to kill the South Korean president, during a visit to Canada in 1982. Canadian police intervened to stop the assassination attempt.

Choi made these statements to another newspaper, after returning from living overseas for 34 years, including North Korea, where he fled after the debacle in Canada.

Choi’s father, who died in 2002, left South Korea to live in Canada, during the 1970s, taking the ITF with him. Since 1973, when the World Taekwondo Federation was founded in South Korea, it has surpassed the ITF in memberships, although ITF-style taekwondo enjoys greater popularity abroad. WTF Taekwondo became an Olympic competition at the Sydney Games in 2000.