Wolves winger punches opponent after alleged racist abuse of Hwang Hee-chan

Wolverhampton Wanderers winger Daniel Podence was shown a straight red card for punching a Como 1907 player after alleged racist abuse was aimed at teammate Hwang Hee-chan during a pre-season friendly in Marbella, Spain on Monday.

Wolverhampton Wanderers' Hwang Hee-chan eyes the ball during a Premier League match against Liverpool in Liverpool on May 19. [AFP/YONHAP]

Wolverhampton Wanderers winger Daniel Podence was shown a straight red card for punching a Como 1907 player after alleged racist abuse was aimed at teammate Hwang Hee-chan during a pre-season friendly in Marbella, Spain on Monday.

According to the Premier League club, Hwang reported the incident during the second half of the closed-door match, leading to angry reactions from his teammates.

Podence was shown a straight red card for his part in the following fracas. According to reports, it is unclear whether the player he struck was the one who is alleged to have abused Hwang.

The Korean midfielder insisted on playing on after the incident, according to a long statement from Wolves manager Gary O’Neil published on the club’s website.

“Channy heard a racist remark which is really disappointing,” O’Neil said. “I spoke to Channy about it, checked whether he wanted to take the team off or come off himself, but he was keen the team carried on and got the work they needed. It’s really disappointing that it happened, that we have to talk about it and that it impacted the game — not ideal and things like that shouldn’t be around.

“He’s really disappointed, of course, and understandably. I’m proud of the fact that he wanted to carry on and put his team first in a difficult moment for him. He knew it was a pre-season trip and he wanted the lads to work and get their minutes, even though he’d suffered something hugely offensive. Channy will be OK, he’ll get our full support and we’ll pick him up in the morning and make sure he’s OK.

“It’s a together group. Of course, there’s ways to handle that and we don’t want to leave ourselves short on the pitch, but it’s a together group. We’ve worked really hard this week, had a good week, had some great moments in the game, but it’s an unfortunate incident we have to deal with and have to discuss when, ideally, we’d be talking about the game. Of course, when an incident like that happens in a game, it’s the first thing we discuss.”

Alongside O’Neil’s comments, Wolves said Monday that they would be filing a formal complaint to UEFA regarding the incident.

Monday’s incident is not the first time Hwang has been subjected to racist abuse during a preseason game. In 2022, Hwang was subjected to racist abuse during a friendly against Portuguese side Farense at Estádio Algarve in the Algarve, Portugal.

Similar incidents are also still common in the Premier League, with both Hwang and Tottenham Hotspur’s Son Heung-min subjected to racist abuse from opposing fans at least once a season. Former Manchester United star Park Ji-sung used to get the same treatment, with his own fans even singing a song about Koreans eating dogs.

Son was even the subject of a racist joke from one of his own teammates earlier this summer: Rodrigo Bentancur told a presenter on Uruguayan TV that all Koreans look the same.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]