The central government has retracted its plan to render financial support for the Gwangju world swimming championships after the local government was found to have forged a bid document to host the event, officials said Sunday, a move that could cause much trouble in running the event.

"We define the Gwangju city government's forgery of a document guaranteeing the central government's financial support as a case in which a municipal government deceived a state organization, disrupting the discipline of the state," a government official said, requesting not to be named. "The authority decided not to execute the budget pledged for the event as punishment for the forgery."

The southwestern provincial city of Gwangju was selected in Barcelona on Friday as the host of the 2019 world swimming championships, becoming the first South Korean host of the championships.

But Seoul officials accused Gwangju Mayor Kang Un-tae of forging high-ranking officials' signatures in a bid document, saying they will quickly take steps to press charges against the mayor, regardless of the result of the bid race.

The central government originally planned to pay 30 percent of the cost for building arenas for the championships.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism confirmed that Kang forged the signatures of former Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and former Culture Minister Choe Kwang-sik in a document guaranteeing the central government's financial support.

The paper was part of Gwangju's letter of intent to host the championships and was submitted to the international governing body of swimming, known as FINA.

The retraction turned on a red light on Gwangju's ability to fund the world event that costs more than 60 billion won (US$53.5 million) on its own. 

The ministries of finance and culture earlier decided to limit the scope of international sports events eligible for support from state coffers to five major events - the Olympics, Asian Games, Universiad, World Cup and World Championship in Athletics -- starting next year due to rising costs

Last year, the central government spent about 315.6 billion won on supporting international sports events to be hosted by local governments, an amount up two fold from 184.8 billion won in 2010, according to government data. (Yonhap News)