The football league of South Korea has hit three players at Ulsan Hyundai FC with a one-match suspension and fines for racist comments.

The K League convened a disciplinary committee on Thursday, where it imposed the suspension and a fine of 15 million won, or around eleven-thousand-500 U.S. dollars, on players Lee Myung-jae, Lee Gyu-sung and Park Yong-woo.

The league also ordered the club to pay 30 million won to take responsibility for the incident.

The penalties come in response to posts on Lee Myung-jae’s social media account, in which Park called him “Sasalak” in apparent reference to Sasalak Haiprakhon, a Thai national who played for K League One club Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors during the 2021 season.

Widely interpreted to be a comment about the defender’s dark complexion, the post was followed by Lee Gyu-sung’s comment referring to his teammate as a Southeast Asian player, to which Lee Myung-jae made a derisory reply in the same vein.

A fourth Ulsan player, Jung Seung-hyun, as well as a club official who had played along, meanwhile, were excluded from disciplinary action, as they were deemed to not have made specific racial comments.

This was the first time in the K League's 40-year history that a disciplinary review has been held over concerns of racism.