The city government of Gwangju allegedly forged a financial guarantee letter to host the FINA World Championships, according to the Culture Ministry on Friday.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that they would make an official against Gwangju Mayor Kang Un-tae for using the forged signatures of a former prime minister and culture minister in the letter submitted in a bid to host one of the biggest aquatic sports events in the world.

“We found out the Metropolitan City of Gwangju used the forged signatures of former Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and former Culture Minister Choe Kwang-shik in the financial guarantee letter during their bid to host the 2019 FINA World Championships,” a high-level Culture Ministry official was quoted as saying in the local news report.

“Regardless of the bid outcome, we will charge the city government for using forged signatures in the document,“ the official added.

The host city of the 2019 FINA World Championships is expected to be announced at 7:30 p.m. on Friday (Korean time) at the general assembly of the international swimming body. Gwangju has been in a bid race with the city of Budapest, Hungary.

According to officials, the Korean government caught the alleged use of the fake signatures in the letter while a team from FINA met Prime Minister Chung Hong-won during their visit to Korea for an on-site survey for the upcoming competition.

After that, the city of Gwangju replaced the forged letter with another letter confirming the Korean government’s “active support” for hosting the swimming event, which they say the government agreed to.

The city government received approval to host the international swimming event in the first half of last year from the government ― a procedure required to host an international event that needs government financial support of more than 1 billion won ($890,000).

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)