Korean football fans to watch Son and Kane play in person

South Korean football fans are getting excited as Son Heung-min and Harry Kane will play for their EPL team Tottenham Hotspur in South Korea.

Tottenham Hotspur will compete against Team K-League, which consists of K-League players, in the Seoul World Cup Stadium at 8 p.m. on July 13. Tottenham Hotspur will play against Sevilla, a prestigious club in Spain’s La Liga, in the Suwon World Cup Stadium at 8 p.m. on July 16.

According to Coupang Play, the host of the European teams’ visit to South Korea, all 66,000 tickets for the match between Team K-League and Tottenham Hotspur were sold out in 25 minutes after they went on sale at 3 p.m. on Friday. Forty-thousand tickets for the match between Tottenham Hotspur and Sevilla were sold out in 20 minutes after they began to be sold at 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Tottenham Hotspur’s visit to South Korea is part of its pre-season Asian tour. Five major football leagues in Europe, including the EPL, begin a new season in August, which lasts until May the following year. During the two-month pre-season before the next season starts, they tour other countries for foreign fans.

It has been 17 years since Tottenham Hotspur played in South Korea for the Peace Cup in 2005. The team won the final victory at the time. The English team also visited South Korea in 2017 for promotion without a match. During the upcoming visit, South Korean fans can watch not only Son but also his close friend and the leader of the British national football team Kane. The two players made 41 joint goals, which is the highest figure in the history of the EPL. Ivan Perisic who recently joined the team, as well as Antonio Conte, the team’s manager, will also meet South Korean fans.

There is also high interest in Sevilla that will play against Tottenham Hotspur. Sevilla will also play at the UEFA Champions League next season and its UEFA club ranking for the 2021-2022 season is 12th, which is two ranks higher than Tottenham Hotspur. It is a very strong team with six UEFA Champions League wins under its belt.

South Korean fans who could not book tickets are rushing to private websites to buy from other ticket owners. There are posts on consumer-to-consumer sales websites seeking tickets for the matches with 100,000 won on top of the tickets’ retail price as of Monday. Ticket prices are soaring as some are proposing to sell two third-class B tickets, whose retail price is 30,000 win, at 350,000 won.


Dong-Wook Kim creating@donga.com