Three presidents and counting: South Korea

0:02The Economist

0:10Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

0:24In Brazil, small changes to the law on football are leading to big changes in the sport. Now that teams are no longer run like non-profits, the money and investors are pouring in, and the top tier is looking like it might rival England's Premier League. And when it comes to film adaptations, superheroes have been squeezed for all they're worth. Movie studios need another cash cow to milk, and plenty of them seem to have their sights set on video games.

1:02But first...

1:11The sense of instability in South Korea is only growing worse.

1:19Last month, President Yoon Seok-yeol, weakened after his party got a pasting in parliamentary elections, declared martial law as a means to overcome political opposition.

1:32Suffice to say, it didn't work.

1:39Resistance was strong and retribution was quick. Mr. Yoon was impeached 11 days later. But that's not even the latest impeachment of a South Korean president. Meanwhile, the country is reeling from a horrific plane crash that killed everyone aboard save for two of the crew. To that previous pile of political pressure, add the anger of many families still waiting for an explanation of what went so wrong. South Korea is facing its most severe crisis in years. Noah Snyder is our East Asia Bureau chief. The crash of the Jeju Air flight is the worst air disaster on South Korean soil in the country's history.

2:23It killed 179 people. Lots of questions remain about what happened and why. And the responsibility to get to the bottom of this, to find answers for grieving families, comes amidst a deepening political crisis and a real leadership vacuum in South Korea. Well, let's talk first about the air disaster then. What is the latest there? So officials have said that they've finished the grim work of identifying the victims aboard the plane and relatives had been waiting for news of their loved ones' bodies. Earlier today, police said that they raided the offices of Jeju Air, the airline whose plane it was.

3:09They've also gone into the airport, Milan Airport. Investigators have recovered the black boxes and the voice recorder data. There's going to be a long process to extract and recover that data because of the level of damage. And investigators are combing for documents relating to aircraft maintenance, to airport operations, trying to gather any clues as to what happened and why. Because all of that is still entirely unclear. Well, there are a few theories that have emerged or a few potential factors that we do know about. One is that the pilot reported a bird strike. The plane landed without its landing gear down, without its wheels down, and without its wing flaps open.

3:55So in a rather unusual emergency fashion. And there's a big question about why the pilot, who was a veteran pilot, chose to execute such an emergency landing. And then there's also a question about the design of the airport and the runway. The plane had skidded at high speed and struck a kind of a concrete embankment structure that was housing equipment at the end of the runway. And officials are now looking into why that structure was placed there and whether, in fact, standards for airport design across South Korea need to be reconsidered. So as is often the case with air disasters, it's probably a confluence of multiple factors and investigators are going to have a real tough job ahead to piece together the full picture.

4:43Well, especially in light of the leadership vacuum that you mentioned. Exactly. This disaster would be a challenge for the best leader in the best of times. But South Korea is now being led by its third president in as many weeks. Yoon Suk-yeol, the former president, tried to impose martial law in early December, and that really set off this political crisis. He claimed that he did so because the country's National Assembly, which happens to be controlled by the opposition party, had become what he called a monster and a threat to democracy. The attempt at martial law failed thanks to public protest and swift action.

5:29by parliamentarians who voted to overturn it. Soon after that, they voted to impeach Yoon Suk-yeol himself. And on Tuesday this week, a court approved an arrest warrant for Yoon on charges of insurrection. The deadline to execute that arrest warrant is next Monday. Yoon has resisted so far and has reportedly written to his supporters that he will, quote, fight to the end to protect the country. So he's not standing down. And in the meantime, the constitutional court is taking up his impeachment proceedings. The next hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. And on top of that, the first acting president, the former prime minister, Han Dook Su, was himself impeached at the end of last month.

6:23So it leaves the country's governance in real turmoil at a critical time. So as predicted when we first covered this story about the Marshall Law Declaration, this has led to a period of political instability. But why is it that the acting president was also impeached? Well, it's a great question, Jason. And the ostensible reason is that he refused to appoint three justices to the constitutional court, which is the body that has to hear the impeachment trial for former President Yoon. The court had three vacancies, so only six of its nine seats were filled. And that's led to some questions about whether the impeachment proceedings could in fact legally, technically, procedurally continue.

7:11So Han had refused to appoint new justices that the National Assembly had nominated, and the Democratic Party, the opposition party which controls the assembly, swiftly moved to impeach him, in part, they say, for his role in the martial law fiasco, or rather for not stopping President Yoon's attempt to impose martial law. The Democratic Party argues that Hahn is essentially trying to protect his former president. Hahn, who's a technocratic figure who's served under both progressive and conservative administrations in the past, has said that legally he may not have the authority to appoint justices as a acting president.

7:54So it's a bit of a gray area. And the upshot is that he was pushed out as well. And so now we're on to our third acting president in as many weeks, the deputy prime minister and finance minister Choi Sang-mok, who took over just in time to oversee the response to the tragic crash of the Jeju air flight. And so do you think that is the start of a period of stability that the presidential merry-go-round will conclude and will get back to a stable democracy we know well? Unfortunately, Jason, I think there's still a lot of uncertainty ahead. The process for resolving the political crisis could take months, maybe even up to half a year.

8:38The Constitutional Court needs to rule on former President Yoon's impeachment. And if they uphold it, then the country needs to hold new presidential elections within a couple of months. Those are likely to bring the Democratic Party to power, but that won't necessarily resolve the deeper crisis in South Korean politics, which we've talked about before, Jason. This really intense polarization, this sense of enmity between the two parties, between the two main political camps, I think has really only become heightened throughout this crisis. And there's a lot of healing that will have to happen in the coming months and years.

9:27And it will be the biggest challenge, I think, for the next president, whoever he or she is. Noah, thanks very much for your time. Thank you for having me.

10:12The Final of the Copa Libertadores And fans had basically turned out to cheer on two Brazilian teams, Atlético Mineiro and Botafogo.

10:27The match was historic for several reasons. One is that Botafogo is like a perennial underdog, but they won. Two, the fact that it's two Brazilian teams in the final for the sixth year in a row. So Brazilian teams are just dominating this tournament. And three, both teams are private limited companies. And this is the first time in the history of this cup that the two finalists are private companies. So hang on, that is a new notion then that Brazilian football clubs would be, well, essentially private businesses. It is. In 2021, Brazil allowed football teams to incorporate. Before that, they'd been structured as non-profit organizations.

11:10And now with the football PLC's law, or SAFs by the Portuguese acronym, football clubs are allowed to basically sell shares. And Botafogo is the most spectacular success of a SAFI since then. But it won't be the last because Brazil's football teams are now awash with money. This is leading some people to believe that Brazil's football league could become like the British Premier League, which is by far the most successful league financially in the world. But talk me through how things have changed for Botafogo in particular. So Botafogo is a historic Brazilian club. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was a factory for the world's best footballers, like Garincha.

11:50It has supplied more players to Brazil's national team than any other club. But then in the 80s, it really got into a rut, and it hasn't won any major cup title since the 1990s. In the 2000s, it was kicked down to the second division three times. So it went through the series of humiliations and it was heavily indebted. It looked like the club might have to close. And then after the SAFSA law was passed in 2021, John Texter, an American businessman, bought the team. And his firm, Eagle Football Holdings, also owns stakes in Crystal Palace in England and Olympique Lyonnais in France. And since Texture bought it, he's basically injected hundreds of millions of reais into the team.

12:36So the team's debts have been cut in half and he paid record sums for new players. Now Texture is thinking of taking Eagle Football Holdings public and expects to raise at least a billion dollars. Texture is a pretty controversial figure in Brazil. But at least for Botafogo, the rewards have been great and the fans love him. After the Copa Libertadores final, I was messaging a 70-year-old Botafogo fan called Isaiah Lieberbaum. And he told me, we Botafogo fans have John Textor on Earth and God in Heaven. He was ecstatic because, as an older fan, he has seen the club decline over the years and now feels that his fortunes are being turned around.

13:23And you think that Botafogo is not going to be the last team where this kind of rags-to-riches story plays out? So since the SAFs law was introduced in 2021, just four of Brazil's big 12 teams have become SAFs, but more are expected to follow. Another example of success, apart from Botafogo, is Cruzeiro. It's a team that had even bigger debts than Botafogo, and it was bought by Ronaldo, the really famous Brazilian striker. He bought it up in 2021, and then he sold it in April for a huge profit after bringing the team back into the first division. But beyond those individual cases, investors are really excited.

14:04I talked to the president of Banco Master, which is a Brazilian bank. He's called Daniel Vorcaro, and he co-owns Atlético Mineiro.

14:18He told me there's huge potential for privatization of football in Brazil.

14:26Because of the talent in the country and passion for the sport, and that there's loads more clubs that could become SAFs. And SAFs are not the only reason there's a lot of money sloshing around in Brazilian football right now. Okay, what's another? So another factor is sports betting. Brazil legalized sports betting in 2018. And since then, Brazilians have become very keen gamblers. The central bank thinks that Brazilians spent more than$3 billion per month in 2024 on bets run through its digital payment system called PIX. So it doesn't include other payment forms, meaning that the real value is probably much higher.

15:01And there are problems with the sudden surge in gambling. The government is freaked out about it. It's recently passed a law forcing betting firms to get licenses. And now it's discussing what to do about people who get government aid and spend that aid on betting. But in any case, sports betting has brought a lot of money into the game. Which, as you point out, comes with its own potential pitfalls, I guess. Definitely. So widespread gambling, especially for people who don't have that much money, obviously can lead to problems. And SAFs aren't the answer to all the problems in Brazilian football.

15:34You need a team to be well run as well. So, for example, in 2022, an American investment group called 777 Partners bought one of Brazil's biggest teams. But 777 Partners went bankrupt. Other people that I interviewed told me that they think that Brazil's rise was kind of inevitable. Colombia and Chile both have SAF-like football models, but their teams aren't that great. Brazil has a much bigger population, which means that there's a bigger market for tickets, for merchandise, for broadcasting rights. And it has a culture of football. It has a history of producing talent. But despite these arguments, I do really think that extra money from staffs and sport betting help.

16:16It helps you to get better players and that helps to improve your team. And there's now talk that Brazil could even be a model for the rest of the region. Argentina, which is Brazil's football nemesis, is probably the country whose teams need the most investment. After the Copa Libertadores final, Argentina's president, Javier Millet, posted on Twitter, now X, should we talk about SAFs? So far, Argentina's football associations have resisted these kinds of efforts, but maybe the shame of watching Brazilian teams dominate on their home turf will change their minds. Ana, thank you very much for your time.

16:52Thanks for having me, Jason.

17:01God may have created the world in six days, but that's also how long it took Marcus Persson, a Swedish developer, to design the first version of Minecraft. Alexandra Suits-Bass is The Economist's culture editor. In the game, users are able to build their own worlds and visit others. It's been one of the most successful video games of all time, surpassing 300 million sales worldwide. These are my hidden powered rails. It connects to all the villages I've found so far. Next, Minecraft the film, starring the actor Jack Black, is coming out later this year. It's going to be a pixelated pulse-taking of sorts of audiences' appetite for adaptations of their favorite games.

17:46And Minecraft isn't the only game making the leap to the big screen.

17:542025 is going to be a big year for video games on the big and small screen. You have Mortal Kombat 2 and Five Nights at Freddy's 2 coming out this year. There's some 30 projects adapting video games into films and television series that are coming. Video games come with several advantages. They have cultural and commercial cachet, a built-in fan base, And Hollywood is looking for its next big thing after superheroes. There's a sense that superheroes aren't the surefire heroes that they once were at the box office. So Hollywood is looking for another source of inspiration to take the place of comic books.

18:40Hollywood hasn't always had a pleasant experience adapting video games for the big screen. Doom, which was released in 2005, was a notorious failure. But it's been in the last several years that risk appetite for adaptations started to change. Thanks in large part to the small screen and television series, we saw the success of The Witcher in 2019 and Arcane in 2021 and The Last of Us. Billions of puppets with poisoned minds permanently fixed on one unifying goal. Many of them won critical acclaim.

19:22And the breakout film of 2023, Super Mario Brothers, showed just how big video game films could get. It was the second highest performing film of the year after Barbie, taking nearly$1.4 billion globally at the box office. And the sequel is in the works.

19:44I think that it's worth watching out for three things in the coming year. First, video games are changing who participates in Hollywood, and many are happy with this. Gamers and game designers are becoming more involved creatively. This can be good because it keeps shows feeling more authentic for those who are really big fans of the game. second hollywood's likely to embrace video game technology and filmmaking more deeply you see game engines used for special effects already these are only going to spread on film sets and that helps visual effects be really immersive also game storytelling techniques and action sequences are going to be integrated into films and there's a big question about how games are going to change filmmaking even beyond video game films.

20:34For example, could games make films more violent than they are already? It's going to be a subject I think that a lot of people will be discussing in 2025 as the influence of video games on films becomes clearer.

20:51Those who are watching video game adaptations on the big screen might think that Hollywood is the king of entertainment. That's not the case. The biggest release of the year in the entertainment world is going to be a video game in 2025, Grand Theft Auto VI. It's going to be bigger than any movie. So when it comes to games, Hollywood, known for its rivalries and jealousy, is no longer the leading star.

21:37That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.