Excluding Lee Jae-sung and Son Heung-min from the World Cup was simply a punishment for being "disobedient"

Players are being personally attacked by reporters in public.
The players who led the boycott of press interviews and appealed to the Association asking why they weren't protecting the players were Son Heung-min and Lee Jae-sung.
How dare they rebel against the Association? Hong Myung-bo, a former high-ranking official of the Association, immediately excluded them from the starting lineup as punishment for being "disobedient."
Lee Jae-sung was the only player capable of receiving Lee Kang-in's penetrating passes, and the reason they completely ignored Lee Kang-in's pleas to the coaching staff during the match that he needed "Jae-sung hyung" was simply because of this "disobedience" penalty.
It might be one thing to exclude them from the starting lineup to enforce discipline in friendly matches, but not letting the captain and senior players play in the main tournament because they were "disobedient" is truly below common sense...
It seems likely that Castroff also couldn't play because he was blacklisted by Hong Myung-bo.