Tottenham star Son Heung-min is now officially one year younger in his native South Korea, who have passed a new law changing the way the country recognises the age of its citizens.
South Korea's traditional method of counting age saw people deemed one-year-old as soon as they were born, with an extra year added on January 1 regardless of when their actual birthday was. Despite the country starting to use the more common internationally recognised system of calculating a person's age from zero the day they are born for medical and legal documents, Reuters state that the traditional system remained in place for everything else.
However, lawmakers voted to scrap that system altogether in December and it has now been passed into law, with South Korea's Minister of Government Legislation Lee Wan-kyu stating earlier this week: "We expect legal disputes, complaints and social confusion that have been caused over how to calculate ages will be greatly reduced."
President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged to make the change when he ran for office last year, stating that the traditional method was causing "unnecessary social and economic costs". As a result of the change, Son will now be officially recognised as being 30 years of age.
The forward's age has always been counted using the international method outside of South Korea and Spurs will not need to re-register him as registration rules only require an accurate date of birth rather than an age. The news comes after Son moved to shut down rumours he could leave Tottenham and make the move to Saudi Arabia.
It had been claimed that Son had been offered a lucrative £100m deal to join Saudi Pro League side Al-Ittihad, but he insisted he has no plans to leave Tottenham anytime soon. "I am not ready to go to that league and I like the Premier League," he said while on international duty.
"I have more things to accomplish in the Premier League. Money is not the most important thing to me right now. What is more important is the pride of playing in the league I love. I still have more things to do in the Premier League. I guess the [Spurs] fans will love me for saying this."
Son joined Spurs in 2015 in a £22m switch from Bundesliga side Hamburg and has been an excellent signing. He has netted 145 goals in 372 appearances in all competitions for Tottenham, helping them reach the 2019 Champions League final and notably winning the Premier League golden boot alongside Liverpool star Mohamed Salah in the 2021-22 season.
Tottenham, meanwhile, have been very active in the transfer market so far this summer, with new head coach Ange Postecoglou bringing in goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario from Empoli and playmaker James Maddison from recently relegated Leicester.
