How a North Korean football prodigy vanished, and re-emerged

SEOUL – When the North Korean football team played in two 2026 World Cup qualifying matches in November, close observers noticed an important roster change.

Han Kwang Song was back, more than three years after vanishing from public view for reasons beyond his control – United Nations-imposed sanctions on North Korean nationals over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.

The striker’s story is a rare case in which sanctions on North Korea have reverberated through professional football. It also shows how enforcement of UN sanctions against individuals varies by country.

The government in Italy did not deport Han, now 25, while he was playing professional football there. But when he moved to Qatar, the Qatari government did.

“The basic story makes sense; the surprising part is that Qatar complied with the UN resolutions,” said Marcus Noland, an expert on North Korean sanctions and executive vice-president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Han’s early success was partly a product of North Korea’s push to cultivate football talent.

After attending a prestigious football school founded by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, he trained in Spain before turning professional in Italy.

He quickly made an impression in Europe as a speedy forward with an eye for goal.

Back home, the official news agency praised him after a 2019 Asian Cup qualifier as “the player that experts and enthusiasts paid the most attention to”.

“In North Korea, he’s a superhero,” said Kim Heung-tae, a professor of sports science at Daejin University in South Korea, who follows the North’s football programme.

But in 2017, as punishment for the North’s sixth nuclear weapons test, the UN Security Council ordered all North Korean nationals working abroad to be repatriated by December 2019 – to prevent financing of the North’s military.

Han, playing overseas in pro football leagues then, was among the targets. But the Italian authorities did not repatriate him by the 2019 deadline, UN Security Council reports show.

Instead, Juventus, where he had been earning more than €500,000 (S$730,000) a year, struck a deal in early 2020 to send him to Al-Duhail, a team in Qatar, on a five-year contract worth about €4.3 million.

Though a Security Council panel of experts on North Korea contacted Italy and Qatar immediately after that transfer, it was not cancelled.

Juventus accepted a transfer fee from the Qatari club, according to the UN.

The panel said in a report that it later “reiterated to Qatar the relevant resolutions concerning the case”.

That summer, Han stopped appearing for Al-Duhail. In January 2021, Qatar’s mission to the UN said in a letter to the UN panel that Han had left Qatar after his contract was “terminated” by the club – and that Qatar’s actions reflected its commitments to Security Council resolutions about North Korean nationals who earn income abroad.

At the time, the coronavirus pandemic was raging, and North Korea’s borders were sealed.

Qatar said in its letter that Han had left the country on Qatar Airways Flight 131 – a non-stop flight to Rome.

Details of Han’s movements since leaving Qatar, including the timing and circumstances of his return to North Korea, remain scarce.

According to Transfermarkt, a website that tracks players and their contracts, he has not played for a pro club since July 2021.

Also unclear is whether any of his earnings ever made it back to the North Korean government.

Han signed an agreement in 2020 with a Qatari bank, where he had an account then, pledging not to transfer any money home, according to a UN report.

Still, Kim said, North Korean agents had most likely accompanied Han everywhere he went overseas and restricted the way he spent his earnings.

Neither Fifa nor the Italian or Qatari foreign ministries; nor North Korea’s football association; nor the Asian Football Confederation immediately responded to requests for comment. Nor did Al-Duhail, Juventus or Cagliari, another team that Han played for in Italy.

Han’s return to competition in November was reported by CNN and the website NK News, among other outlets.

Kim said that the pandemic had probably curtailed many athletic events in North Korea, where an extended border closing crippled the nation’s economy.

But football is the country’s most popular sport, and Kim added that domestic competitions had probably been held regularly recently.

As for Han, Kim said, “he’s probably been training all along”.

NYTIMES