Horror of COVID-19 looms over Korean football players

The warm-up match with Qatar is over, but the terror of COVID-19 for Korean football team lingers. The number of confirmed cases has extended to seven athletes and three staff members with Hwang Hee-chan and a staff being additionally tested positive for the coronavirus. In the Qatar match, Hwang played 76 minutes and was seen hugging his colleagues including Son Heung-min to celebrate his goal, fueling the concern for a surge in confirmed cases among South Korean footballers.

Son, who came back to the UK on Tottenham’s private jet, skipped the test after the game. According to an official from the organization concerned, Son received a test in the UK as the EPL doesn’t recognize the result of COVID-19 tests conducted in foreign countries.

This is dealing a heavy blow to the local K-League football clubs taking part in the Asian Champions League (ACL) in Qatar. Jeonbuk Hyundai and FC Seoul have decided to send those who played against Qatar back to Korea. This excludes Jeonbuk’s Son Joon-ho and Lee Joo-yong and Seoul’s Joo Se-jong and Yoon Jong-gyu from ACL competitions. Ulsan’s goalie Cho Hyun-woo, who has been tested positive, is under lockdown at a facility in Austria. Waiting for a chartered airplane from the Korea Football Association, Cho posted a picture of the view from his room on Instagram, with a prayer to go back to South Korea safely.


Yun-Cheol Jeong trigger@donga.com