Re-signing with captain Son Heung-min is the biggest challenge for Tottenham Hotspur of the English Premier League (EPL) in 2024. This is because his contract with Son will end in June 2025. He still has more than a year left on his contract, but it is not a time to spare in the European soccer community, where fierce recruitment competition takes place every day. In July, Tottenham lost Harry Kane, the symbol of their team, to Bayern Munich, the most prestigious club in the German Bundesliga, with one year left on his contract.
The fact that Son Heung-min was even offered a blank check last summer proves his status in the EPL. A Spanish media reported that the Saudi Arabian professional football league’s prestigious Al-Itihad offered to recruit Son in June. At the time, Al-Itihad’s owner Khaled Al Marjogi said he was willing to offer a blank check to recruit Son Heung-min.
A blank check means a check with only the payer’s signature written on it and no amount is written on it. In a nutshell, it means “I’ll give you as much money as you want, so you just need to sign a contract.” A blank check offer is a token of recognition as the best player in the relevant field. It was reported that Lionel Messi, who has won the most awards (eight times) at the Ballon d’Or trophy that is given to the world’s best soccer player, received a blank check offer whenever he renewed his contract. The same was true for his transfer last summer. Messi moved to Inter Miami of Major League Soccer in the U.S. in July. It was reported at the time that his team Paris Saint-Germain offered a blank check to secure Messi.
Pep Guardiola, the EPL Manchester City coach who is now recognized as the best football coach in Europe, was often offered a blank check. In 2012, he rejected offer to renew his contract with FC Barcelona for a blank check and took the helm of Bayern Munich. Guardiola moved to Manchester City after the end of his term as Munich coach, and reports suggested that Chelsea had prepared a blank check to recruit Guardiola. 스포츠토토
Park Ji-sung also wrote in his autobiography “My Story” that when he was playing at the Kyoto Purple Shopping Center in Japan after the Korea-Japan World Cup, a Korean K-League team offered a blank check. Even after advancing to the EPL Manchester United, Park Ji-sung said that Middle Eastern clubs and the Chinese side also sent blank checks once in a while if they could forget it. Volleyball Empress Kim Yeon-koung also appeared on tvN’s entertainment show “You Quiz on the Block” in May and said that she wanted her team so much when she played for Bright U-vest in Shanghai in the 2021-2022 season that she received a blank check at the time. Kim Yeon-koung rejected Shanghai’s offer at the time and chose to return to Korea.
Faker (Lee Sang-hyuk), an e-sports legend, is known to earn billions of won a year. He was offered 20 million dollars a year in China and North America but turned it down. A blank check is, so to speak, a token of your recognition that you are at the top of a field. It is a blank check that is given to those who have the best skills and abilities in the area with capital.
Sports stars are not the only ones who are offered blank checks. Actress Kim Soo-hyun gained sensational popularity with the 2014 drama My Love from the Star. Thanks to the Korean Wave, her advertising fee in China has soared to 11 million yuan. An official from Kist, Kim’s agency at the time, said that she was offered blank checks in China.
Announcer Cha In-tae, who is famous for being the first host of the MBC Longevity Program Scholarship Quiz, also said that he had been offered a blank check in the past. Announcer Cha was the leading announcer of MBC from 1973 to 1990, and said that he was offered a blank check when SBS was launched in 1991. Popular show host Dong Ji-hyun appeared on MBC’s entertainment program “Radio Star” on May 11, 2019, and said that the company had proposed a blank check when he expressed his intention to leave the company.
There are people who received blank checks even at a time when Korea was not economically sufficient. The representative figure is Kim Beol-rae (real name Kim Pyeong-ho), the sound designer who was widely known in the Korean advertising and sound industries. He is the one who made the sound of opening the bottle cap in a Pepsi-Cola commercial that was aired worldwide in 1966. The U.S. headquarters gave him a blank check in recognition of his capability, and Kim wrote 985,000 won. He reportedly wrote 985,000 won, excluding 15,000 won from his bank account, keeping in mind the one million won 60 pyeong of housing in Bulgwang-dong Cultural Village.
It is a blank check that allows you to spend as much as you want, but that does not mean that you can get unlimited amounts of money. If the amount used on the blank check is larger than the balance of the person who promised to pay, the bank may refuse to pay. In other words, the request can be made within the balance of the account of the payer who signed the check. The club may use blank checks as a negotiation strategy. Since it is difficult for the club to evaluate the value of a player, it is suggesting blank checks in the sense that the player should evaluate their own value. On the contrary, there are cases where a player delegates blankly to the club asking it to evaluate their own value.
Last season, Son suffered ups and downs due to orbital fracture, but is proving his worth by tying for third in EPL scoring (10 goals) this season. Given Tottenham fans’ strong support for Son, chances are high that he will effectively sign a contract worth a blank check. Currently, Son is contracted to receive 9.88 million pounds (about 16.3 billion won) annually from 2024 to 2025. Locals predict that Tottenham will seek to renew the contract by breaking the existing salary system.