North Korean footballer recognized as dual North/South Korean citizenship

Jong Tae-se

Jong Tae-se plays for the North Korean national team and as a South Korean for the K-League’s Suwon club

By Kim Kyung-moo, staff reporter

Jong Tae-se, a 29-year-old football player nicknamed “the people’s Rooney” who joined the Suwon Samsung Bluewings, a South Korean K-League pro-football team, will be able to take the field as a South Korean player in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League. This is a result of Jong being recognized by the AFC as having de facto citizenship in both North and South Korea.

“We have been in contact with the AFC recently through the Korea Football Association (KFA) regarding Jong’s citizenship,” a spokesperson for Suwon said on Feb. 1. “The answer we received from the AFC is that Jong is regarded as having dual citizenship in North Korea and South Korea.”

Jong will play on the North Korean national team in international “A” matches and will compete in AFC Champions League matches as a South Korean player.

This is no small feat for Suwon. Teams competing in the AFC Champions League are allowed to field three foreign athletes, and they can also bring one additional player from the Asia region to the field. At the moment, Suwon has Aussie defender Eddy Bosner on its roster, and with Jong recognized as a South Korean athlete, the team can now use both of them.

If Jong were regarded as having North Korean citizenship, Suwon would have to choose either Bosner or Jong as its additional Asian player. (Bosner is regarded as Asian because Australia is an AFC member country.)

Born in Japan, Jong is a third-generation Korean resident in Japan. His father Jong Gil-bu holds South Korean citizenship, while his mother Ri Jeong-geum maintains her North Korean citizenship from before the liberation of Korea. Jong followed his father’s lead in acquiring South Korean citizenship, but he attended a school operated by the Korean General Association of Korean Residents in Japan [a pro-North Korean organization]. Additionally, in Jun. 2007, while Jong was playing for Kawasaki Frontale, a club in the Japanese J-League, he was selected for the first time for the North Korean national team. Since then, he has been a key striker for the North. In 2010 he took part in the World Cup in South Africa. Suwon agreed to pay Koln €300,000 (USD $395,850) as a transfer fee.

While Jong holds South Korean citizenship, he gained permission to play for the North Korean team through the mediation of FIFA, and he was quickly issued a North Korean passport. Jong was registered as a player with North Korean citizenship by the AFC, which assesses citizenship according to the country that issued a player’s passport.

It was in this context that, as Jong joined the Samsung football team to play in the K-League Classic starting this year, questions were raised about whether he was a North Korean player or a South Korean player. Suwon made contact with the AFC regarding this and achieved the outcome.

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