Prince Hwang In-beom finally joined the big club.
Feyenoord announced on the club’s official website on the 3rd (Korea time) that “Korean midfielder Hwang In-beom has been recruited to reinforce the center. Hwang In-beom from Serbian champion Tsurvena Zvezda has signed a contract with the club until 2028.” The transfer fee is not known, but according to Serbian media, Hwang In-beom reportedly recorded around 10 million euros (14.5 billion won), the highest in the club’s history.
Feyenoord introduced Hwang’s journey by circling the globe and drawing a line. Feyenoord said, “He is a native of the Hana Citizen Youth in Daejeon, and he became the youngest scorer in the club’s history after debuting professionally at the age of 18 in 2015. He joined Olympiacos, one of the best clubs in Greece at the time after playing for the Vancouver Whitecaps (USA) Rubin Kazan (Russia). He was also considered one of the best players in the Greek league. He also grew up as a mainstay of his team at Zvezda in September 2023. The Korean midfielder who led Zvezda to the championship cup was the Serbian league MVP last season thanks to Hwang In-beom’s performance that assisted former Feyenoord player Urosi Spic’s decisive goal.”
Hwang also expressed his feelings about joining the club. “I am very happy to be here at Feyenoord. My teammate Urosi Spic told me that I made the right decision to go to Feyenoord. Feyenoord is the biggest club I have ever played,” Hwang said. “It is also the biggest club in Europe. I want to stay here for a long time. I know that every home game is full of stadiums, so I look forward to showing myself to fans.”
According to Feyenoord, Hwang In-beom will not play because he still has a transfer process. His uniform number will be 4. There is an A-match in September, so his full-fledged Dutch league debut is expected to be after that.
The transfer was as urgent as the process of moving to Zvezda after leaving Olympiakos in August last year. Hwang couldn’t even take photos due to the transfer that took place at the closing date of the transfer window to Serbia. The transfer window of the Netherlands` Eredisiv will be closed on Sept. 2 local time. While staying in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, from Belgrade, Serbia, Hwang confirmed his move to Feyenoord through an announcement by his team after completing a medical test.
Feyenoord is considered the best option. Hwang In-beom, who constantly knocked on the door of the European big leagues after overseas expansion, has been waiting for proposals from the so-called four major leagues (England, Italy, Spain, and Germany) in this summer’s transfer market. Rumors of interest in Real Betis (Spain), Crystal Palace (England) and others have been reported through Serbian media. He has also been linked to multiple Bundesliga clubs.
Hwang left Olympiakos last summer to join Serbia’s top club Zvezda. His transfer came to the surface through Greek and Serbian media. The Greek sports media Gazeta Greece simultaneously reported Hwang’s transfer. The media reported that the transfer fee is 5.5 million euros. He explained that Olympiakos allowed him to move to Zvezda, a team he always had good relations with, because he felt pressured to prolong the dispute with Hwang. Another Greek media outlet, Sportal, also said that Olympiakos preferred to earn transfer fees rather than engaging in legal battles with players.
Citing Tanyug news agency, Serbia’s leading daily Politica said, “Hwang In-beom will become a new member of Zvezda. He signed a four-year contract,” adding, “He will pay about 5 million euros (about 7.12 billion won) over three years. It is the highest transfer fee in the club’s history.” Politica said, “Hwang In-beom, who was in conflict with the club over the contract period, has already left Olympiacos for about a month,” adding, “With the two sides deadlocked, Zvezda intervened and succeeded in recruiting Hwang In-beom.” He added, “Hwang In-beom is the best player in Asia. Zvezda has strengthened his power the most in the last 10 years.”
After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Hwang In-beom, who played for Kazan, wore an Olympiacos uniform after passing through K-League FC Seoul through FIFA’s special rules. He played in 32 league matches, five UEFA Europa League qualifiers and three Greek Cup matches while playing as a mainstay at Olympiacos. He scored three goals and four assists in the league, one goal in the Europa League qualifiers and one goal in the cup. Hwang boasted a strong position enough to be selected as the “Player of the Year” by the league secretariat from the 2022-2023 season, but has never played in an official match since the conflict with the club.
Hwang left Olympiacos and wanted a new challenge. Considering soccer officials and Greek media reports, Hwang had differences with Olympiacos over contract details after directly requesting transfer to Olympiacos. When Hwang joined Olympiacos, a prestigious Greek club, in July 2022, he claimed that he signed a one-year contract that includes an option (two years). Hwang, who was a member of Russian club Rubin Kazan at the time of transfer, recognized that he could not sign a contract for more than a year under special rules set by FIFA due to Russia’s armed invasion of Ukraine, and reportedly wrote a contract with Olympiacos accordingly. This is why he pushed for a transfer this summer when his one-year contract ends.
“As far as I know, a buyout clause has been inserted in the contract. Hwang seems to believe that if a club that offers a buyout appears, he can transfer without consultation with Olympiacos,” a soccer official said. The reported buyout amount is 3 million euros. It is believed that there are clubs interested in recruiting in detail from the German Bundesliga.
Olympiakos is said to be a three-year contract without options, and they say they must offer an appropriate transfer fee in order to make a transfer. 메이저사이트
The two sides agreed as Olympiacos took a hardline stance through the Greek media, saying they would not hesitate to fight in court
The key was the transfer fee. Zvezda invested a club record of 5 million euros (current exchange rate of 7.4 billion won) to recruit Hwang in the summer last year. The buyout, which means the amount that the opposing team can recruit without negotiation, is 7.5 million euros (approximately 11.1 billion won). However, the clause was only applied when transferring to the five major European leagues. This meant that the Dutch club, which is ranked sixth in the European league as of 2024-2025 season, had to negotiate with Zvezda separately to recruit Hwang. No four-league team that proposed the deal did not appear until April 30, the deadline for the transfer market of the four-league league. “In fact, many teams showed interest in recruiting Hwang, but they were reluctant to pay more than 10 billion won in transfer fees,” a source familiar with Hwang said. Hwang was on the verge of signing a contract with a four-league team even before joining Zvezda last summer, but his transfer was canceled due to variables such as transfer fees.
Fortunately for Hwang In-beom, Feyenoord was a team loaded with so-called “bullets.” This summer, he sent key defender Ricciharl Heyrtrawida and midfielder Mats Bifer to Leipzig (Germany) and Brighton (England), respectively, earning a huge 52 million euros (about 77 billion won) in transfer fees. With the new season already starting, he decided that investment was necessary to recruit a substitute for Bifer, who is also the Dutch national team. Feyenoord, who selected Hwang In-beom as the No. 1 replacement, “betted 8 million euros (about 11.8 billion won, estimated” and won the acquisition match with Ajax. According to the Dutch media Wöttbal Premier on the 2nd, Las Teunysen of “Transfer Window” said, “Hwang In-beom should succeed Bifer, but he should be considered the successor of Orkan Kökchwi (Benfica) in the long run. Hwang In-beom is a cold (calm) player, a box-to-box type.”
According to Hwang, he was largely attracted to two conditions. One was whether he would participate in the Champions League, which is considered the best soccer tournament in the world. Feyenoord won a ticket to the finals of the Champions League last season by ranking second in the Eredivisie under current Liverpool coach Arne Slot. Having learned the “taste of the Champions League” by experiencing the European Champions League group stage for the first time at Zvezda, Hwang will face leading European teams such as Leverkusen (home), Girona (away), Benfica (away), Red Bull Salzburg (home), Manchester City (away), Spartan Praha (home), Bayern Munich (home), and Lille (away). The “Champs best friend derby” with Kim Min-jae (Munhen), who was born in 1996, will inevitably attract public attention.
Although Rubin Kazan (Russia), Olympiacos (Greece), and Zvezda, which Hwang In-beom has been through, are said to play a bridge role in advancing to major European leagues, Feyenoord cannot be followed only in terms of the possibility of going straight to the four major leagues. Looking at the previously mentioned cases of Heyrtrawida and Bifer, players who have performed well in Feyenoord and completed their verification in Eredivisie emerge as the top 0 recruitment for the big leagues. Two years ago, Luis Sinisterra (Liz, current Bournemouth), Marcos Senesi (Bournemouth), and Tyrrell Malacia (Manchester United) went directly to the English Premier League side by side. Domestic soccer fans jokingly say, “If you do well in the Dutch league, Manchester United coach Erik tenhach will take you.” Hwang In-beom plans to first adapt to Feyenoord as quickly as possible, show good performance, and then pursue it later.
Hwang is also said to have used the Eredivisie league as a reference in deciding that the Eredivisie is a league with deep ties to Korean players. Heo Jung-moo, Park Ji-sung, Song Jong-guk, Seok Hyeon-jun, Roh Jung-yoon, Lee Chun-soo, and Kim Nam-il visited the Netherlands. In particular, Song Jong-guk had a reputation as a key Feyenoord fullback from 2002 to 2005. If Hwang joins, he will become the ninth Korean to play in the Eredivisie league, and the third Korean to join Feyenoord, following Song Jong-guk and Lee Chun-soo. Currently, the numbers available in the Feyenoord first-team squad are 4, 7, 13, and 66. Hwang once joined the team four times in his first season as a role model in Vancouver in 2018. His first number in his professional debut season was 13. His favorite number is currently No. 6 worn by the national team, but currently, at Feyenoord, his position competitor, Algerian national team Ramiz Geruky, wears No. 6.
Feyenoord, founded in 1908, is one of the most prestigious 16 championships in the league, the third-largest number in the league so far, including wins in the 2022-2023 season. It won the European Champions League in 1970. It has been passed by legends such as Joan Cruyff, Rut Goulit, Ronald Koeman and Robin van Persie. Coach Dick Advocaat, who led the Korean national team in 2006, led the team from 2019 to 2021. In place of the slot coach who left for Liverpool this year, Brian Friske, a former coach from Denmark who is non-Dutch, took the helm of Feyenoord for the first time in 33 years. He ranked eighth with one win and two draws in three games since the opening of this season. Hwang In-beom, who went to the A-match in September, is likely to make his debut quickly through an away game in the fourth round against Groningen on the 15th. This is because midfielder Jeruki was sent off in a 1-1 draw against Spartan Rotterdam on the 25th of last month, and will not be able to play in the next game.
