The family of Tottenham Hotspur star Son Heung-min is at the centre of a controversy.
The player’s father, Son Woong-jung, and his elder brother, Son Heung-yun, were fined this week in South Korea over child abuse accusations at a football academy.
These charges emerge from April 2024 when a then-12-year-old student, simply known as Kim, sued a coach working at Son Woong-jung Academy for physical and verbal assault. The family of Kim claimed that he was attacked by a corner flag and he was soon after under verbal target following his inductions into the academy.
Based on the Child Welfare Act and Child Abuse Punishment Act, the South Korean prosecutors have imposed fines on Son Woong-jung, Son Heung-yun, and one other coach. The actual amount of the fine has not been reported. These three will also be required to participate in child abuse treatment programs.
Son Woong-jung, who is a popular figure through his best-seller memoir about son Heung-min’s upbringing, denies the allegations. He told prosecutors that it was “mutually agreed-upon fitness training.” That is much different from what Sun Heung-yun said the day before about his father, Son Heung-min, to whom he turned in brutal physical training methods that he and his brother had used.
“With the possibility of abuse in youth sport academies being real, the addition of high-profile status on Son Heung-min itself pegs a greater weight to this issue. The sentence underlies the importance of safe, positive environments for young athletes in South Korea and the world”.
Tottenham star’s family fined for child abuse
