Wolves will submit an official complaint to UEFA after South Korea striker Hwang Hee-chan said he was racially abused during Monday’s friendly with Italian side Como.
The incident occurred midway through the second half of the game staged at Wolves’ pre-season training base in Marbella with team-mate Daniel Podence sent-off in the ensuing melee.
Head coach Gary O’Neil spoke to Hwang and offered him the chance to have the game abandoned but the player opted to carry on.
O’Neil told the club’s official website: “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.
Gary O’Neil addresses the incident that overshadowed our first pre-season training game.
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— Wolves (@Wolves) July 15, 2024
“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 won the game 1-0 over the Serie A new-boys, full-back Matt Doherty scoring the only goal shortly after the hour mark, heading home Rayat Ait-Nouri’s free-kick.
