Han Kwang-song’s story is like a bad agent movie.
North Korean youth won the Asian Under-16 Championship in 2014.
Even at that point, for the sake of the team, Han Kwang-son’s, the excerpts attracted attention. It was clear that it would be the closed terror state’s brightest football hope.
However, life as a North Korean soccer player is not simple, because all of the country’s success is based solely on the dictator Kim Jong-un to visionary leadership.
Han got his foot in the door of football clubs. As a teenager, he was pursued by both Manchester City and Liverpool.
Pool scout Barry Hunter tried to lure the striker to Anfield by promising a meeting Steven Gerrard’s with. Hunter couldn’t believe his ears when he heard that Han, who grew up in a cultural vacuum, didn’t know who it was.
Good relations with Italy
Finally, at the age of 18, Han signed a contract with the Sardinian club Cagliari. They certainly had an effect in the background as well Silvio Berlusconi quite warm relations with comrade Kim.
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North Korean despot Kim Jong-un is more of a basketball guy. PDO
Career took off promisingly in Italy. Han also became the first North Korean to score in Serie A.
It is still the only complete hit by a North Korean in all five of Europe’s top leagues.
Han was one of 50 nominees for the 2018 Best Young Player (Golden Boy) together by Martin Ødegaard, by Matthis De Ligt and Kylian Mbappé with.
– He was a really good player on the field, but otherwise maybe a bit shy guy. He didn’t talk much. At times it looked like he was afraid to speak, teammate Nicholas Pennington said for CNN.
– I remember that Han talked about his family. That he misses them and doesn’t know when he will get home to see them. It must have been difficult.
Soon Perugia wanted the striker on loan: the striker would score a hat-trick in his debut.
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The UN is starting to bully
After that, geopolitics hit the futar’s career with its sharp pick. Han was born (in 1998) in the middle of North Korea’s worst famine. The dark military power had already curled up in its shell, having been left without economic backers after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Even now, the country is still a close part of the “axis of evil”.
And when Han’s obvious talent woke up the Italian giants, word of his contracts also reached the UN headquarters.
Juventus first picked up the youngster on a loan deal, but the intention was to bring the forward into the Old Lady’s representative team.
At this point, the international community pulled the handbrake. There was reason to believe that Han’s salary would mostly flow into North Korea’s nuclear weapons project.
All citizens of the country pay their wages earned abroad to the central government, which then distributes a fraction back as a kind of daily allowance.
Champion of Qatar
The UN practically banned Juventus from hiring Han. The Torino left fulfilled the terms of the loan agreement, and redeemed Han’s contract for 3.5 million euros.
Six days later, it sold the futar, which had become problematic waste, to the Qatari club Al-Duhail at a 100 percent profit.
It was January 2020. Han started strongly in the Persian Gulf, but unfortunately the season was already interrupted in mid-March due to the corona pandemic.
Han’s club, Al-Duhail, were declared champions. With three goals in ten matches, the Korean striker was one of the team’s mainstays.
But again a letter came from the UN. This time, Han had to sign a contract that said his salary could not be sent abroad.
However, tightened UN sanctions meant that North Koreans were no longer allowed to work outside the country’s borders.
The Qatari club also had to terminate the contract. At the same time, the guest worker’s residence permit in the emirate ran out.
Disappears during corona
But now the story takes a surreal twist, because the corona pandemic had completely closed North Korea. So you couldn’t get in there, and you especially couldn’t get out.
Where did Han end up?
No one knows this. The attacker completely disappeared from the face of the earth. There is no record of him after August 2020 – until November 2023 when Han reappears on the football map.
Han plays in the World Cup qualifying match of the opening period against Syria (0–1 loss) and in last Tuesday’s 6–1 defeat of Myanmar, the attacker completes North Korea’s third goal.
So the only thing that is certain is that Han is alive. And he still plays football.
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Hani’s promising football career was cut short due to UN sanctions. PDO
The player is not allowed to give interviews to journalists, and there is no reliable information about his movements for the past three years.
The most plausible guess is that he has spent all his time in Rome in the premises of the North Korean embassy – without ever going outside the walls of the building.
He probably had to resort to a fake outfit even when he was out in the garden.
Naturally, the 25-year-old’s football career will no longer rise as high as one could have thought with the talent of his teenage years.
– The skills are rusty. I feel really sorry for him because he had to stop playing football. Han was a great talent, a Norwegian who coached the North Korean national team in 2016-2018 Jørn Andersen said.
Of course, the player himself is not to blame for that. He just happened to be born in the wrong country.