2023-07-03 01:57:00
Han Kwang-seong, a North Korean national soccer player who once stepped on the top stage in Europe and was called ‘People’s Ronaldo’, was released from Qatar and the news was cut off.
On the 1st (local time), the American CNN broadcast focused on Han Kwang-seong through an article titled “This North Korean player surprised the soccer world and then disappeared.”
Han Kwang-sung is the first North Korean player to score a goal in Europe’s top 5 soccer leagues. He moved to Italian big club Juventus in 2019 and was shocked.
Han Kwang-seong entered the Pyongyang International Soccer School, which was established by North Korea in 2013, in the early days of Kim Jong-un’s rule, in accordance with the idea of a ‘sports powerhouse’. Shortly following opening, 14 students went to Spain and 15 students went to Italy to study under the support of the North Korean government.
One of them is Han Kwang-seong. Han Kwang-seong, who went to Barcelona, Spain, began to stand out. After revealing his talent as a striker, in 2017 he joined the Cagliari youth club of Serie A in the Italian first division. Shortly following, he was promoted to professional and proved his talent by scoring his first goal on April 10, a week following his official debut.
Max Kanji, who was Cagliari’s youth coach, recalled in a CNN interview, “I told a fellow coach 20 minutes following watching Han Kwang-seong train, ‘It’s very good, we have to send it to the first division.'”
I also learned Italian quickly. But he said nothing to questions regarding North Korea, remembered his former youth teammate Nicholas Pennington. “I might sense he was afraid to say anything (regarding North Korea),” Pattington said. He said ‘I don’t know’ even regarding the smallest things. He also said he misses his family and doesn’t know when he’ll be able to go home.”
Han Kwang-seong reached the top in 2020 when he transferred to Juventus, one of the prestigious Seria A clubs. He was sold to Qatar’s Alduhail club in just a week, but his value was recognized by receiving a transfer fee of 4.6 million dollars (approximately 6.1 billion won) over 5 years. But he didn’t play long in Qatar either. In August 2020, following lifting the championship trophy in the last game of the season, he disappeared.
After being released from Qatar in January 2021, Han Kwang-seong was found to have stayed in Rome for a while waiting for flight routes to North Korea to resume, but his whereregardings following that are unclear.
CNN said in the report of the UN Security Council that at the time, Kwang-Sung Han signed a pledge stating that he would “not send money to North Korea under any circumstances” while doing business with a bank in Qatar.
The specific reason for his release from Qatar is not known, but it is believed that he broke his promise not to send money to North Korea. In February of that year, British media reported that “Han Kwang-seong was forcibly repatriated to North Korea for violating UN sanctions,” and “it is highly likely that he sent most of his monthly salary of 80,000 pounds (regarding 130 million won) to North Korea.”
“Most of the pay will go to the North Korean regime,” said Professor Ramon Pacheco of King’s College London. The athlete will take only part of it in the name of living expenses,” said Edward Howell, an international relations researcher at Oxford University, who also said, “Han Kwang-seong’s salary must have been a clear source of income for the North Korean regime.”
Reporter Park Tae-geun, Donga.com ptk@donga.com
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