In March 2016, after turning 18 (date of birth: 02/08/1998), Choe was registered at the ACF Fiorentina with a “youth of league” contract, which means that he plays without pay and is regulated by article 33 of the Italian Football Federation rules. Article 33 of the same regulations indicates that young players (from 14 to 19 years old) only have the right to a final training compensation, and only during their last season with that particular club. The amount is paid annually, as defined by the league. The negotiation had a positive conclusion, even though the Italian Football Federation could confirm neither Choe’s original club (allegedly Chobyong Sports Club
) nor a possible economic transaction between the old club and the new one, Fiorentina.
The negotiation has been subject to investigation by the Italian Parliament for the following reasons:
1) Possible violation of the UN economic sanctions on North Korea under Resolution 2321 since a potential economic transaction between Fiorentina and Chobyong—allegedly linked to the Korean People’s Army (KPA)—could be directly financing the North Korean military;
2) The young player has not been granted the full rights that Italy guarantees to everyone else within its territory. When abroad, North Korean soccer players and North Korean workers in general are accompanied by members of the State Security Department (SSD).
Choe is allegedly under the custody of a guardian named Jong Sang-hoe, who is the team manager of the DPRK under 16 National Team, which trained in Perugia, Italy for at least six months. Choe was forbidden from giving interviews not related to soccer matters.
The Parliament interrogation did not receive a formal reply from the Italian government, but Fiorentina discharged Choe and 14 other North Korean players immediately after the interrogation started, which could appear suspicious.
Like Choe Song-hyok, Han was also allegedly trained in the Chobyong Club. During the 2014 Under 16 Asian Championship in Thailand, he was captain of the DPRK national team, leading it to victory and qualifying for the Under 17 World Cup in Chile the following year.
After these successful international appearances, Han was noticed by the Italian Soccer Management (ISM) and arrived in Perugia, Italy, in 2017. He started earning the minimum federal income for training (1,500€ per month), which is required to go to Han’s personal bank account. One of the original concerns of the Italian Parliament was the actual destination of this money,
which was supported by the findings that between 70% and 90% of the salary of North Korean workers abroad goes directly to the North Korean regime.
The parliamentary investigation led by Michele Nicoletti, Partito Democratico (PD) Deputy, earlier this year, came to just the recommendation to the Italian Government to control soccer clubs’ payment procedures, assuring that the transfers go to the North Korean players and not to North Koreans authorities, in order to fulfil the worldwide embargo on North Korea
Once Han turned 18 years old (date of birth: 09/11/1998), he was contracted by Cagliari Calcio Club as a young professional and made his first appearance in Serie A on March 10, 2017. He scored his first goal on April 2, 2017, which led his new team to victory. He became the first North Korean player to score in a Serie A game.
Sports in North Korea.
Sports have always been used by the North Korean regime as a propaganda tool, and even worse, as a means of introducing North Korean spies into other countries. For instance, in the late 1960s, North Korea used the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF) to send spies disguised as taekwondo masters around the world. Their most ambitious plan was the attempted assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-Hee during a visit to Canada, which was foiled by Canadian authorities.
[21] Since then, North Korea has actually participated and distinguished itself in the following sporting events:
- Olympic Games
- First Winter Games in 1964, Innsbruk, Austria, wining one silver medal;
- First Summer Games in 1972, Munich, Germany, winning one gold, one silver and and 3 bronze medals (total of 5);
- Most recent games in Rio in 2016, winning 2 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals (total of 7)
- Paralympics
- First in London in 2012, no medals;
- Most recently in Rio in 2016, no medals;
- 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea
- Kim Un-hyang, an artistic gymnast, became a gold medalist. The DPRK delegation won 11 gold, 11 silver and 13 bronze medals, for a total of 35 medals.
- 2015 World Aquatic Championships in Kazan, Russia
- Kim Kuk-hyang, a female diver, became a gold medalist
- Kim Un-hyang and Song Nam-hyang, female synchronized divers, became bronze medalists, for a total of 2 medals for the DPRK
- Soccer World Cup
- 1966 Soccer World Cup: North Korea upset Italy 1-0 in Middlesbrough, England, one of the biggest surprises in the history of the competition. North Korea advanced to the quarter finals (round of eight, only 16 teams advanced to the World Cup back then). In a memorable quarter final match, North Korea lost to a legendary Portugal side featuring iconic footballers Eusebio, Torres, Coruna and others, 5-3 after having been up 3-0 in the first half. Until South Korea qualified to the semi-finals (round of four) of the 2002 World Cup it co-hosted with Japan, North Korea’s 1966 performance was the best ever by an Asian team.
(Image Credit: Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Given that training is expensive for the regime and resources are scarce in North Korea, it is remarkable that these athletes have been able to win international competitions.
[22] But their results are also the result of obsessively intense mobilization of available resources by the North Korean regime.
These athletes are pressured to win for the “glory of their Leader.” In 2012, during the London Olympics, North Korean medalists affirmed that their success was possible thanks to their leader, Kim Jong-un. Om Yun-chol, male gold medalist in weightlifting, said, “I won first place because the shining supreme commander Kim Jong-Un gave me power and courage.”
[23] Again, in 2016, after winning the female gold medal for weightlifting at the Rio Games, Rim Jong-sim said, “The first thing I thought when I knew I had won was that I had made our beloved leader happy.”
[24] Winners of gold medals are given the title of “Honorable Athlete” or “People’s Athlete” and receive gifts from the government, such as luxurious cars and houses.
[25] The relationship between sports and the regime is not that several athletes belong to the army—this happens elsewhere in the world—but that the North Korean athletes are trained under the control of the State Physical Culture and Sports Guidance Commission, established in 2012 by Kim Jong-un. It was originally under the authority of the National Defense Commission (NDC), but is now under the State Affairs Commission (SAC), whose First Chairman was Jang Song-taek. After Jang’s execution, Choe Ryong-hae, one of the most powerful men close to the Supreme Leader, quickly filled the position of First Chairman.
Soccer in North Korea is controlled by the KFA, established in 1945 and directed by Ri Yong-mu, a Lieutenant General in the KPA.
[26] The KFA is a member of both FIFA (since 1958) and AFC, the Asian Continental Federation (since 1954), but it does not follow their transfer regulations. Usually, soccer clubs make money from ticket sales, bonuses received from advancing in international competition, private donations, advertising sponsors, or from transferring their players. In North Korea, it is the government that finances the soccer clubs, essentially taking over the decision-making process and controlling the budget.
[27] To emphasize, it is the regime which finances soccer clubs and is actually the only institution with the money to do so. Moreover, the Department of Sports, which has hegemonic control over all sports, is a KWP office. Thus, when a club buys a North Korean player, it is essentially handing money to the Kim regime.
In 2013, Kim Jong-un opened the Pyongyang International Football School, making his will to make soccer a top priority in the country very clear. With global attention on the North Korean nuclear program, sports are considered a chance to divert attention. With approximately 200 boys and girls from 10 to 14 years old, the soccer academy also functions as a school with classrooms, lecture halls, and dormitory rooms. However, only the most talented players are sent abroad, mostly to Italy and Spain, to receive professional training.
[28] "We are training our students to become super-talented players who can surpass the skills of people like Lionel Messi," said Ri Yu-il, one of the school’s coaches. They are aware of the great importance of foreign expertise, and for this reason, the men’s national team manager is a Norwegian coach, Jorn Andersen. Nonetheless, Andersen recognizes how difficult it is to train players who cannot go outside the country to compete against better-trained international players. In North Korea, young players can only learn and study the techniques of great players, such as Zinedine Zidane, Lionel Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo, by watching videos on CDs and USBs on their computers
[29]. "My national players are with me but they don’t get match practice. They are always training, training, training ... but they don’t play matches," Andersen affirms.
[30]
“Half the stadium’s seats are assigned to civilians—who in summer all wear white hats, white shirts and red ties—while the other half is allocated to the military. Match marshals control the crowd with flags, instructing them to chant or applaud with wooden mitten clappers […] After every goal the crowd claps in unison and—if the Supreme Leader is present—the whole of the scoring team rushes forward to stand before him and salute.”[31] This is how Ri Myong-guk, a soccer player from Pyongyang City Club, described a match in North Korea.
Attending a soccer match in Pyongyang is like attending one of the national parades honoring the Leader. One must cheer for the national team as one would cheer for the North Korean regime. To make matters worse, supporting and participating in these soccer events is demanding and expensive. People simply do not have enough money to attend matches in Pyongyang and are not able to go abroad to support their national team. Furthermore, the shortage of electricity means that during global sporting events, watching soccer matches on television is difficult and exclusively for the elite.
[32]
In 1966, North Korea beat Italy during the World Cup in England, granting the DPRK national team international media attention. However, it was not until 2002 that a BBC crew obtained authorization for entering North Korea to film a documentary on the team entitled “The Game of their Lives.”
[33] After ten months of training—including a tour in Russia—the North Korean players demonstrated their skills and shocked the world with their fast game, named after North Korea’s, Stakhanovite public mobilization campaign, Chollima, under Kim Il-sung.
After this incredible result, it took the DPRK national team 44 years to qualify to another World Cup, making it to South Africa in 2010, where only 50 North Korean citizens were allowed to attend in person to support their team. This time, the result was different, as the DPRK national team ended as the worst performing team in the World Cup.
[34] According to the U.S.-based Radio Free Asia, the team was subjected to six hours of public mauling for "betraying" the communist nation's ideological struggle. The team coach, Kim Jung-hun, was accused of betraying the Leader’s son,
Kim Jong-un. Winning would have been attributed to Kim Jong-un in an attempt to build support among the military and KWP members for the imminent power transfer.
[35] FIFA was asked to investigate the accusation. After an investigation, FIFA claimed that the accusations were “baseless” and in a letter to FIFA, the Korean federation claimed that the coach and team were “training as usual” to take part in the 16th Asian Games.
[36] Besides assurances that
FIFA had “checked all of its sources,” no evidence of coach or team safety was provided.
This was not the only issue North Korea has encountered with FIFA. Some members of the DPRK women’s team were banned from the 2015 Women’s World Cup for steroid use—the result of a traditional medical treatment called musk deer gland
[37] therapy.
[38] Furthermore, FIFA’s issues with North Korea have steadily extended into the political realm. In 1966, there were problems getting the DPRK national team to England to play against countries that did not officially recognize the nation.
[39] However, over the past 14 years, FIFA has provided North Korea with a total of $2 million in funding, $450,000 of which was delivered in 2001 to improve the Kim Il-sung Stadium in Pyongyang.
[40] Funds were also allotted to upgrade the training camp for the national soccer team, the headquarters of the North Korea Football Association, and to open the International Soccer School for children under 13 in 2014. Last year, an additional $7,678 was provided for domestic soccer development, maintaining fields, and training adolescents and referees. However, policy changed following the nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, and the satellite launch in 2012. Finally, in March 2015, FIFA renounced its plans to provide $1.66 million in financial assistance to the North Korean Football Association. This funding would have come from FIFA’s Financial Assistance Program (FAP), intended for nations that lack the resources to support a national soccer program.
[41] FIFA is based in Switzerland and has to respect the sanctions of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), implementing and intensifying UN sanctions and travel bans on North Koreans suspected of having ties to the country’s nuclear program. For these reasons, FIFA is no longer able to provide North Korea with financial assistance.
[42]
This analysis is not intended to dismiss the importance of cooperation in soccer or other sports. The scope of this analysis is rather, to argue that when it comes to North Korea, sports simply cannot be separated from politics. In North Korea, political considerations dominate every single aspect of life in the country. Nevertheless, despite the threat North Korea poses to international peace and security, both inside and outside the country, the DPRK national team was able to play in the qualifiers for the 2018 Russia World Cup.
[43] Soccer clubs all over the world still conduct negotiations with suspicious North Korean clubs. Han’s team, Cagliari Club, is hosting and training another young North Korean player, Pak Yong-gwan (born in 1998), who comes from the same club, Chobyong.
[44]
The Italian government has neither direct links nor apparent relations with the North Korean regime. But ignoring the atrocities committed inside the country is unacceptable. Hosting and paying two, three, or even ten soccer players in Italy may not provide massive financial assistance to the North Korean regime, but conducting any business with the North Korean authoritarian dictatorship should be taken much more seriously by the Italian government.
Italy has a diplomatic and political role in the international community and has recently implemented the UN’s sanctions on North Korea—withholding approval for the entrance of newly-appointed North Korean diplomats into the country and forcing some North Korean students in Italy to change their major from nuclear-related issues.
[45] Moreover, on January 1, 2017, Italy became a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, meaning that it should set an example for the international community in regards to implementing and respecting United Nations sanctions. Controversy should be avoided. Even if soccer organizations are allegedly not directly affiliated with the government, they are under strong regime control in North Korea.
Of course, Han and Choe are not the problem. Instead, Han and Choe could be the solution. They are not just great soccer players, they are human beings, and they should not be used as propaganda tools, hiding and diverting attention away from the ongoing atrocities committed within their country.
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