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Wolverhampton Wanderers winger Daniel Podence was flashed a straight red card for punching a Como 1907 player after alleged racist abuse had been targeted at teammate Hwang Hee-chan during a pre-season friendly in Marbella, Spain on Monday.
Hwang reported the incident during the second half of the closed-door match, which immediately led to angry reactions from his teammates. The ensuing fracas saw Podence shown a straight red card for punching a rival player, although it is unclear whether the player he struck was the one who is alleged to have abused Hwang.
The Korean midfielder gamely insisted on playing on after the incident, according to a long statement from Wolves manager Gary O’Neil published on the club’s website.
“Channy heard a racist remark which is really disappointing,” O’Neil said. “I spoke to Channy about it, checked whether he wanted to take the team off or come off himself, but he was keen the team carried on and got the work they needed. It’s really disappointing that it happened, that we have to talk about it and that it impacted the game — not ideal and things like that shouldn’t be around.
“He’s really disappointed, of course, and understandably. I’m proud of the fact that he wanted to carry on and put his team first in a difficult moment for him. He knew it was a pre-season trip and he wanted the lads to work and get their minutes, even though he’d suffered something hugely offensive. Channy will be OK, he’ll get our full support and we’ll pick him up in the morning and make sure he’s OK.
“It’s a together group. Of course, there’s ways to handle that and we don’t want to leave ourselves short on the pitch, but it’s a together group. We’ve worked really hard this week, had a good week, had some great moments in the game, but it’s an unfortunate incident we have to deal with and have to discuss when, ideally, we’d be talking about the game. Of course, when an incident like that happens in a game, it’s the first thing we discuss.”
Alongside O’Neil’s comments, Wolves said Monday that they would be filing a formal complaint to UEFA regarding the incident.
The incident is not the first time Hwang has been the target of racist abuse during a pre-season game, as he was a target in 2022 during a friendly against Portuguese side Farense at Estádio Algarve in the Algarve, Portugal.
Such untoward ugly episodes are not uncommon in the Premier League, with both Hwang and Tottenham Hotspur’s Son Heung-min subjected to racist abuse from opposing fans at least once a season. Along the same vein, former prominent Manchester United star Park Ji-sung also used to get the same treatment, with his own fans even singing a highly objectionable song about Koreans eating dogs.
Son was recently even the subject of a racist joke, albeit allegedly unintentionally, from one of his own teammates earlier this summer as Rodrigo Bentancur told a presenter on Uruguayan TV that all Koreans look the same, a comment he immediately apologized to the South Korean for subsequently.