How a North Korean football prodigy disappeared and reappeared
When the North Korea men’s soccer team took to the field this month for two qualifying matches for the 2026 World Cup, close observers noticed a significant change in the roster.
Han Kwang-song, a controversial striker, was back, more than three years after disappearing from the public eye for reasons beyond his control: United Nations-imposed sanctions on North Korean nationals over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
Mr. Han’s story is a rare case of North Korean sanctions resonating across professional soccer. It also shows how enforcement of UN sanctions against individuals varies by country.
The Italian government did not deport Mr. Han, now 25, when he played professional soccer there. But once he moved to Qatar, the Qatari government did.
“The basic story makes sense; what is surprising is that Qatar has adhered to UN resolutions,” said Marcus Noland, an expert on North Korea sanctions and executive vice president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
A child prodigy with ‘superhero’ status
Mr. Han’s early success was partly a product of North Korea’s drive to cultivate soccer talent. After attending a prestigious soccer school founded by the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, Mr. Han trained in Spain before turning pro in Italy.
He quickly made an impression in Europe as a speedy striker with an eye for goals. At home, North Korea’s official news agency praised him after a 2019 Asian Cup qualifying match as “the player that experts and enthusiasts paid the most attention to.”
“In North Korea, he is a superhero,” said Kim Heung-Tae, a sports science professor at Daejin University in South Korea, who follows the North’s soccer program.
But in 2017, as punishment for North Korea’s sixth nuclear weapons test, the United Nations Security Council ordered the repatriation of all North Korean nationals working abroad by December 2019. This was a strategy to prevent the financing of the North Korean military.
Mr Han, one of many North Koreans playing in professional soccer leagues abroad at the time, was among those targeted.
Sanctions meet reality
But Italian authorities failed to repatriate Mr. Han by the 2019 deadline, according to reports by the United Nations Security Council. Instead, Juventus, the Italian club where he earned more than half a million euros a year, struck a deal in early 2020 to send him to Al-Duhail, a soccer team in Qatar, on a five-year contract worth about 4.3 million euros, or about $4.7 million.
Although a Security Council panel of North Korean experts contacted Italy and Qatar immediately after that transfer, the transfer was not canceled and Juventus accepted a transfer fee from the Qatari club, the UN said. The panel said in a report that it later “reiterated the relevant resolutions regarding the case to Qatar.”
That summer, Mr Han stopped playing for Al-Duhail. In January 2021, Qatar’s mission to the United Nations said in a letter to the UN panel that Mr Han had left Qatar after his contract was “terminated” by the club – and that Qatar’s actions reflected commitments under Security Council resolutions on North Korean nationals earning income abroad.
At the time, the coronavirus pandemic was raging and North Korea’s borders were closed. Qatar said in its letter, a copy of which was included in a UN report, that Mr Han had left the country on Qatar Airways Flight 131 – a non-stop flight to Rome.
“He’s probably been training the whole time.”
Details about Mr. 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 soccer players and their contracts, he has not played for a professional club since July 2021.
It is also unclear whether Mr. Han’s income will ever flow back to the North Korean government.
Mr Han signed an agreement in 2020 with a Qatari bank, where he had an account at the time, promising not to transfer money back to his home country, a UN report said. Still, Professor Kim said, North Korean agents likely followed him wherever he went abroad and imposed restrictions on how he spent his earnings.
Neither FIFA, football’s governing body; nor the Italian or Qatari foreign ministries; nor the North Korean Football Association; nor the Asian Football Confederation immediately responded to requests for comment. Nor did Al-Duhail, Juventus or Cagliari, another team Mr Han played for in Italy.
Mr. Han’s return to competition this month was previously reported by CNN and the website NK newsin addition to other outlets.
Professor Kim said the pandemic is likely to have curtailed many athletics events in North Korea, where prolonged border closures crippled the country’s economy. But football is the country’s most popular sport, and Professor Kim said domestic competitions were likely to have been held regularly in recent months.
As for Mr Han, Professor Kim said: “He has probably been training all the time.”
Rather than join another professional league abroad, Mr. Han will likely focus on preparing for the 2026 World Cup, Professor Kim said. He added that North Korea was competitive in its region and had a good chance of qualifying, partly because FIFA nearly doubled the number of places for Asian nations at that tournament, which will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Max Canzi, who coached Mr Han in Italy for Cagliari’s under-19 team, told CNN he was “very happy” the striker had returned to international competition for the World Cup qualifier against Syria in Saudi Arabia on November 16.
As Mr Han resumes his career, Mr Canzi added that he was “very curious about the level of his performance after being out of action for so long.”
Mr. Han was substituted at half-time in the match against Saudi Arabia, which North Korea lost 1-0. But five days later in Yangon, Myanmar, he contributed to a 6-1 win over the home country with a trademark headed goal.
