After a decade at Tottenham Hotspur, the Korean megastar Son Heung-min is now offically going to be playing for LAFC in Major League Soccer. The Athletic’s senior reporter Paul Tenorio has been following this one closely, and he joins World Sport’s Don Riddell for more.

Los Angeles

Son Heung-min, previously a key player for Tottenham Hotspur, has officially joined Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) in Major League Soccer. The move has generated significant excitement in Los Angeles, particularly among the city's large Korean and Korean-American population, and is seen as a major step for both the club and the league.

Son's arrival follows a period of transition at Tottenham, where his role had diminished under a new coach. LAFC's acquisition is part of a broader trend in MLS, with other teams like Vancouver and Miami also making high-profile signings. These moves reflect the league's growing financial strength and ambition to attract top international talent.

LAFC introduce their superstar signing Son Heung-min

The Athletic Senior Director, Paul Tenorio, has been following this transfer saga closely. Great to see you again, Paul. How would you describe the excitement levels in both LA and the league more broadly now that Sonny has landed? Well, I think in LA there's no doubt that there is an enormous amount of excitement around this, both for what Sonny brings on the field and off the field as well. The LA market is home to more than 320,000 Koreans and Korean-Americans. He is going into the absolute perfect city to really bring MLS to the forefront. And those fans are thrilled at a chance to watch a player who is a hero back home in South Korea. There's no doubt about that. And then on the other side, on the field, this is a player who has been at a very high level over the past six, seven, eight years at Tottenham in the Premier League. Yes, he may have dropped off a little bit in terms of his production last year compared to his own numbers, but still had more than 20 goal contributions for Spurs last year. So he's also a player who's going to come right into this lineup and really push LA back into title contention and should be, in my opinion, one of the very best players in the league behind maybe only Lionel Messi. Yeah. Look, he was beloved at Spurs, described by the chairman Daniel Levy as one of their greatest ever players. He helped them win a trophy in Europe last year. They're going to be in the Champions League this coming season. So why do you think he wanted to leave? Well, I think he felt like this was the right time for him. We saw at Spurs towards the end of last season and through pre-season this year that his role at the club was going to be different. He wasn't going to be the featured player that he has been. And I think he sensed that it was the right moment to move on, to give himself the best chance to be playing consistently, to be playing at a level that he wanted to be ready for next summer's World Cup, where he will still be expected to lead South Korea into the tournament. So I think this was the right time for him. Under the new coach Thomas Frank, he just had seen his role diminish a little bit. And LAFC came calling. The club wanted to make it as easy as possible. And now he's going to be the face not just of the team, but one of the faces of the league. Absolutely. So, look, Major League Soccer is, as we know, rapidly expanding in popularity and influence in the game on the world stage. But some might be surprised that one of their teams had so much money to spend on a single player. What does that say about LAFC and or the league? Well, I'm writing a book called The Messy Effect that comes out next year. And a big part of it is that people need to start to recognize where this league is and where it can go. And the perception gap that exists between what people think of MLS as and what it actually is or what it could evolve to be is quite significant. These types of signings help to close that gap. The ownership group in LA and the ownership group overall in Major League Soccer is one of the wealthiest in the world for any global football league out there. You have billionaires in many, many, many of the markets in Major League Soccer that are capable of going out and spending and competing for this level of player. Now, what needs to change and update is the league's approach to how it builds rosters. Right now, you can only have three players that cost what's on cost, a 26 million dollar transfer fee and a very high salary. We could see that change in coming years in Major League Soccer. Don Garver, the commissioner the other day, spoke about MLS 3.0 and the changes that are expected to come after the World Cup, likely in 2027 or 2028. That's the next iteration of this league. We've seen for many years, many, many years, MLS teams go out and sign big name players. Everyone from Kaká to Bastian Schweinsteiger, David Beckham going all the way back to 2007. This isn't necessarily a new phenomenon. The question is, what can they do with it next? And on that note, Sonny isn't the only major signing in Major League Soccer today. Vancouver have landed the German star Thomas Muller, but Sonny and Min's arrival has somewhat eclipsed that news. But nonetheless, how significant a signing is that? Yeah, I think, again, this is a Vancouver team that has never been one of the MLS teams to go out and get big name players. And so to start to see more MLS teams feel like they have an obligation to be a bit more aggressive, an obligation to go get big name players, to see the impact that a player like Messi had around the league, filling stadiums in every market he went to, you're right, we're starting to see more of this type of signing. And Vancouver is a team which has title aspirations, which is also not typical for the Vancouver Whitecaps. They are one of the better teams in the league, and so they felt like this was the right moment to push those chips into the middle of the table and go and get a star of their own. You know, Miami went and did the same. They signed Rodrigo de Paul, the World Cup winner with Argentina, 31 years old, now joining Messi in Miami. And so all over the league, you're seeing teams take a more aggressive stance and go and look for these types of generational players, big name players, that will not just increase the on-field quality, but hopefully, I think, the buzz around Major League Soccer in general.

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