Ahn Jung-hwan, His Path In a Fog

Korean heroes in the semi-final of the World Cup 2002 are due to a deadline for advancing to the Europe league. They must complete to transfer until August 25 because the pro league is opened at the end of the month.

However, except Lee Eul-yong and Cha Du-ri who advanced to the Turkey league and Bundesliga, Germany respectively, only two players, Ahn Jung-hwan, Song Jong-gug are in the negotiation for the advance into the foreign league. And other payers including Lee chun-soo didn’t have a chance to advance into the foreign leagues this year.

Ahn Jung-hwan, his advance into the Europe league has difficulty like the mountain upon mountain. Came back on August 8 after completing the negotiation with ‘Perugia’, Italy which has a dispute on Ahn Jung-hwan Ownership with ‘Busan Icons’, Ahn Jong-bok, the CEO of Eplayers (Management Company of Ahn Jung-hwan) said “Through mutual agreement of Busan Icons, Perugia and Eplayers, we agreed to transfer Ahn Jung-hwan to the third team, but agreed to simplify a window to Perugia.”

However, anyone cannot be sure that the Perugia could transfer him to the other team immediately and the Busan team would agree.

Perugia persists in exercising the ownership as it insists on giving only USD 1.6 million of a waiver to the Busan team.

Ahn Jung-hwan said that he would consider it on condition that he can transfer to the third team, not playing for the Perugia. The Busan team said before that it would respect his intention to the utmost, but now it is hard to agree with the persistence of the Perugia

Song Jong-gug, the star player of the Busan team also is in the fog. Choi Man-hee, the vice-leader of the Busan team is under negotiation in the European areas, but only one team, Feyenoord, Belgium showed the positive scout intention. There is no progress in the negotiation with other teams.

Keuk-In Bae bae2150@donga.com