Korean FA writes to FIFA after alleged racist abuse of Hwang Hee-chan

The Korean Football Association has written to FIFA to express “serious concerns” after Hwang Hee-chan was allegedly racially abused during a friendly match for his club Wolves.

Wolves are understood to be receiving support from the English Football Association, with the governing body gathering evidence after Hwang was allegedly abused during a pre-season game against Italian side Como in Spain on Monday.

The complaint is expected to be sent to the Italian football federation once the FA has interviewed players involved, after UEFA said it could not investigate because the game in question was not a UEFA competition match.

Como issued a statement insisting the matter had been “blown out of proportion” but Hwang’s national association has now escalated the matter to football’s world governing body FIFA.

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A KFA statement read: “In an official letter sent to FIFA on July 18, the Korea Football Association expressed serious concern about the racist behaviour suffered by Hwang Hee-chan (Wolverhampton) from an opposing team player during a recent practice match, and issued a call to prevent racial discrimination occurring on the soccer field.

“In order to eradicate it, we asked FIFA to further strengthen sanctions against perpetrators.”

FIFA declined to comment on the issue when contacted by the PA news agency.

Como issued a statement on Tuesday saying they had spoken to the defender alleged to have abused Hwang to understand what was said.

“He has told us the comment he made, to his co-defender, was ‘ignore him, he thinks he’s Jackie Chan’,” Mirwan Suwarso, an official representative of Como’s ownership group, said.

“Having spoken to our player at length, we are confident this was in reference to the player’s name, and to the constant references of ‘Channy’ made by his own team-mates on the pitch.

“As far as our club is concerned our player did not say anything in a derogatory manner.

“We are disappointed that the reaction of certain Wolves players has seen the incident blown out of proportion.”

Wolves winger Daniel Podence was sent off for throwing a punch in the aftermath of the incident.

Head coach Gary O’Neil told Wolves’ official website on Monday: “Channy heard a racist remark which is really disappointing.

“I spoke to Channy about it, checked whether he wanted to take the team out or come off himself, but he was keen the team carried on and got the work they needed.

“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.

“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 should never happen.

“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.”