Tottenham to travel to South Korea for 2022-23 preseason tour

Last month, we wrote on a the possibility, as reported in a Korean newspaper, that Tottenham Hotspur could be traveling to Son Heung-Min’s home country in the preseason. Late on Tuesday, Spurs confirmed it. Tottenham Hotspur will travel abroad on a preseason tour to South Korea this coming summer ahead of the 2022-23 season.

Details are few at this stage. The club has not announced where or when the tour will take place, nor against which teams Spurs will play. That all will come later. What we do know is that the tour will be called the Coupang Play Series (after the retail company organizing the tour) and that Spurs will play two exhibition matches in the country. The original report suggested that Mallorca (and Korea international Lee Kang-In) might be one of the other teams invited.

Korea makes a ton of sense. The current captains of both the South Korean men’s and women’s national teams both play for Spurs — Son Heung-Min and Cho So-Hyun. Football has been dramatically increasing in popularity in Asia and Korea, with Sonny hugely famous in his home country. It’ll be quite an experience for Korean football fans to see Son play in front of his home fans.

Notably, the release did not mention whether Cho and Spurs Women would also be included in the tour; it would unfortunate if the same opportunities given to Son were not also offered to Cho and her teammates.

This is the third time in the past decade that Spurs have traveled to Asia for a pre- or post-season tour. Tottenham traveled to Singapore and Shanghai in the summer of 2019, to Hong Kong after the conclusion of the 2017 season, and played a Malaysian XI in Kuala Lumpur in 2015. This will be Spurs’ first trip to Korea.