Hwang Ui-jo poised for Premier League return as loan in Turkey ends

Hwang Ui-jo looks set to return to Premier League club Nottingham Forest after a three-month spell with Turkish team Alanyaspor ended Friday.

Hwang Ui-jo dribbles the ball during a Super Lig game between Besiktas and Alanyaspor at Bahcesehir School Arena in Turkey in a photo shared on Alanyaspor's official Facebook account on May 12. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Hwang Ui-jo looks set to return to Premier League club Nottingham Forest after a three-month spell with Turkish team Alanyaspor.

Hwang’s loan ended on Friday after Alanyaspor drew 1-1 with Antalyaspor in their last Super Lig match of the 2023-24 season. Hwang scored in that match, his first goal for Alanyaspor.

Alanyaspor sit in eighth place on the 20-team table as of press time Sunday, with the standing subject to change after some teams finish their last league games on Sunday.

Alanyaspor signed Hwang with no buy option in February, so he now must return to Nottingham — where he has yet to play a single game despite joining the squad in August 2022.

The move to Turkey earlier this year marked the latest twist in what has been a few tumultuous footballing years for the 31-year-old. He went from being the top scorer at a Ligue 1 club to persona non grata in the Greek Super League in the space of a year, then pivoted to the K League before getting called back to warm Forest’s bench last summer.

After a successful career in Korea and Japan, Hwang, a traditional out-in-front forward, moved to Europe with French club Bordeaux in 2019, becoming the club’s top scorer in both the 2020-21 and 2021-22 campaigns. He was considered a top prospect in the French league at the time, with the official Ligue 1 website repeatedly highlighting him as a player to watch in the transfer market.

But cash-strapped Bordeaux held on until it was too late, refusing to consider a deal until the summer of 2022, when the club crashed into financial administration and faced the threat of double relegation.

Forest, who were in the middle of one of the biggest shopping sprees in European football history at the time, snapped Hwang up and immediately loaned him out to Greek club Olympiacos.

Hwang, in the middle of a difficult slump, struggled to adapt to the Super League club and ended up relegated to the bench and, ultimately, completely out of the squad. That loan ended in January last year when Forest shipped him off to FC Seoul.

Back in the K League, Hwang began to find his feet again, scoring four goals and four assists in 18 appearance. He also found the back of the net for the national team — where he has 62 caps — as well.

Hwang was called back to Nottingham last summer but was loaned out to Championship side Norwich City where he scored three goals in 17 matches. Norwich, however ended the loan deal seventh months early and sent him back to Forest in January.

Hwang has one more year left on his contract with Nottingham.

He cannot play for the national team that is set to play two 2026 World Cup qualifiers in June, as he has been suspended by the Korean national team since November last year for the duration of an ongoing investigation into allegations that he illegally filmed sex videos without his partners’ consent.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN, JIM BULLEY [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]