Wolverhampton Wanderers say they will be submitting a formal complaint to UEFA following an alleged racist remark made towards Hwang Hee-chan during Monday’s pre-season match against Como 1907.
The club said that midway through the second half of the 1-0 win, Hwang, 28, reported the alleged incident, which sparked angry reactions from his team-mates and resulted in the dismissal of Daniel Podence.
Wolves said that head coach Gary O’Neil “spoke to Hwang and offered him the opportunity to abandon the match”. However, the South Korean forward chose to continue and complete the game.
O’Neil has affirmed that Hwang has the full support of his squad.
He said: “Channy heard a racist remark which is really disappointing. 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.”
Wolves added that they condemn racism and discrimination in any form.
The Athletic has contacted Como 1907 for comment.
(Jack Thomas – WWFC/Wolves via Getty Images)
