It is the kind of story you would expect on a Netflix crime documentary: a blackmail plot, a leaked sex video, a family deception and an international footballer who has gone from being the victim to the accused.

That player is on the books of Nottingham Forest and currently in Spain with the rest of head coach Nuno Espirito Santo’s squad, where the Premier League club are preparing for a series of pre-season fixtures.

Hwang Ui-jo, a South Korea international with 62 caps, was charged by prosecutors in his homeland’s capital Seoul last week for allegedly filming sexual encounters with two women without permission on four occasions from June to September 2022. He has been ruled out of contention for selection by the South Korean national team since last November and, if convicted, the offences carry up to a maximum seven years in prison.

“The victim hopes the truth will prevail and that Hwang learns his lesson and realises how much damage his actions have caused,” Lee Eun-eui, the lawyer representing one of the women, has told The Athletic. “To be honest, the victim is in such a state of disbelief and pain she can’t even articulate what she wants to see happen next.”

Court proceedings are scheduled to begin next month.

That, however, tells only part of a story that has already involved one criminal trial, culminating in one of Hwang’s family members going to prison, and intensified a national debate in South Korea about the issue of “molka”, when videos are secretly filmed for sexual purposes. Molka is an abbreviation of mollae-kamera, meaning “sneaky camera.”

Hwang, who denies breaking the law, is a former Korean footballer of the year who played in every game for his country at the 2022 World Cup and has an international career stretching back almost a decade.

He signed for Forest in summer 2022 from Bordeaux, following their relegation from France’s top flight, for £4million ($5.2m) but has spent the past two seasons on loan at four other clubs, including Norwich City of the Championship, English football’s second tier, and is yet to make his official Forest debut.

The 31-year-old striker has been under intense scrutiny since June last year when an Instagram account posted explicit clips from a sex video involving a woman who, it is alleged, had no idea she was being filmed. The person posting the images claimed to be one of Hwang’s former lovers, and was accusing him of having relationships with numerous women, of gaslighting them and secretly filming sexual encounters without consent.

“A lot of women have experienced a similar pattern,” read one post. “He is seeing celebrities, influencers and non-celebrities all at the same time. I don’t know how many victims there will be.”

Hwang’s management company, UJ Sports, described the allegations as “baseless rumours and sexual slurs” and brought in lawyers to take action against the anonymous account. But a different account was set up to continue the threats. In follow-up messages, Hwang was warned “there are many videos”, and that “it would be fun” if they were released.

“I have not done anything illegal,” Hwang responded in a hand-written statement released via his lawyers. “The post (on Instagram) is baseless. I don’t know the person who shared that post. He or she is a criminal who has threatened me by defaming me and using videos from my personal life.”

When police started investigating, however, they uncovered a remarkable series of clues that revealed the poster was not one of Hwang’s ex-partners, after all.

By tracking down the perpetrator’s IP address, the police found out the messages were sent to Hwang from his own house. His sister-in-law, it transpired, was at the property at the time. She was there on the basis that she worked for Hwang as his personal manager. And that was the moment the investigation took a remarkable twist: everything had been sent from her laptop.

The sister-in-law’s name has never been released, other than her surname being Lee, but it has been reported in South Korea that she and her husband — Hwang’s older brother — were directors of UJ Sports, working on behalf of the footballer.

Hwang in pre-season action for Forest in 2023. He is at their pre-season camp this month (Photo: Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)

In police interviews, she denied any wrongdoing and claimed she was being framed by someone who had hacked her account. Over time, however, the evidence began to build up. Investigators were suspicious when it turned out she had wiped her phone with a factory reset after being called in for questioning. She claimed it was to “protect private information” on behalf of her brother-in-law.

Hwang, it was reported, had let her borrow one of his old phones when she went on a trip to South America. That meant she had access, potentially, to his passwords and everything stored on his accounts.

The sister-in-law was charged with violating South Korea’s laws relating to sex crimes and committing blackmail. And, eventually, she confessed to everything.

“I wanted to teach him a lesson, as he didn’t acknowledge the sacrifice that my husband and I have made for him,” she explained in a letter to the Seoul Central District Court. “(We) gave up everything in Korea, moved abroad for Hwang’s success and looked after him for five years. But my husband and Hwang had a disagreement last year while Hwang was preparing to return (to Forest after one of his loan spells).

“I felt betrayed by Hwang for not acknowledging my husband’s hard work. I felt more betrayed because I also left everything behind in Korea, giving up my dream and education to follow my husband for Hwang, spending lonely days abroad.”

She was sentenced to three years in prison (the prosecution had asked for four) and told the court her crimes stemmed from anger about Hwang “being ungrateful”. She apologised for her behaviour, describing herself as being “blindsided by revenge”, and said she wished she could turn back time:

“While managing his private life, I came across a video of Hwang having sexual intercourse with a woman. So I tried to threaten Hwang so he would realise he depended on us (herself and her husband). The only intention was to teach Hwang a lesson. I edited the video so the woman’s face would not be exposed. I never thought of ruining Hwang’s career or harming the woman. I will receive my punishment without downplaying or hiding my crime … and live with remorse for the rest of my life.”

The case has attracted considerable publicity in South Korea given Hwang’s stardom and the added intrigue that he appeared at one point to take his sister-in-law’s side, describing the investigation as a “misunderstanding”.

He has always been aware, however, that at the same time that investigation was launched last summer, a separate police inquiry was underway into whether he had permission to film his lover during sex.

Hwang returned to England last summer for pre-season training with Forest before joining Norwich on September 1, in what was supposed to be a season-long arrangement. Instead, the loan was cut short in January after he managed only three goals in 17 appearances and he spent the rest of the campaign with a club in Turkey.

His best moment in a Norwich shirt was a spectacular long-range goal against Watford on November 28. What few people in the crowd would have known was that, 10 days earlier, he had been questioned by police in Seoul for the first time and his mobile phone was seized as potential evidence.

Hwang celebrates his spectacular goal for Norwich against Watford (Photo: Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)

Three days after that, Hwang played for his country in a 3-0 win against China. Jurgen Klinsmann, a World Cup-winning striker with Germany in his playing days, was South Korea’s manager at the time and said the claims against his player were merely “speculations”.

“It is not confirmed that he is guilty and, until then, Hwang is our player,” Klinsmann added.

Others were less impressed about Hwang’s involvement. The Civic Network for Justice in Sport, a campaign group based in Seoul, demanded an apology from the Korean Football Association (KFA).

“(Hwang) must have self-reflection and willingly surrender his position as a member of the team,” read a statement. “(The KFA) should have disqualified Hwang until the situation is resolved.”

There was no apology, but the KFA announced the following week that Hwang would not be available for selection – ruling him out of the Asian Cup (Asia’s equivalent of the Euros or Copa America or Africa Cup of Nations) played in January and February this year – until “a clear conclusion is reached on the facts.”

[GOAL] 🇰🇷대한민국 5-0 🇹🇲투르크메니스탄
손흥민의 환상적인 탈압박 그리고 이어지는
황의조 뒷 발…ㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ
⠀⠀⠀#대한민국 #축구 #국가대표팀 #월드컵예선 pic.twitter.com/xQHTLirrGM

— theKFA (@theKFA) June 5, 2021

Lee Young-nam, who headed the KFA’s ethics committee, said a player for the national team had to “carry himself with a high level of morality and responsibility”.

“A national team player must maintain the honour of representing the country,” the same official added. “We took into account that a player carefully has to manage his personal life. We also looked into how this decision will affect the rest of the team and how his presence on the field would make our fans feel.”

In the midst of all this, several text messages were disclosed to the Korean media showing Hwang’s alleged conversations with his former lover after the sex video was leaked on the internet.

One of the woman’s messages, shared by her legal team, read: “I clearly said no.” Another asked: “How come there is a video after I said no?”

According to the leaked messages, she also wrote: “You need to admit you committed an illegal action.”

Hwang is alleged to have replied: “I am trying to stop (this situation) as much as I can.”

His legal representatives say: “The video was filmed on Hwang’s mobile phone and not taken illegally, as Hwang and the woman watched the video together after filming it.”

“The victim had no idea this video existed until it was in circulation,” the woman’s lawyer, Lee Eun-eui, told The Athletic. “The only reason why she even knew there was a video was because Hwang contacted her in the process of trying to prosecute the person who had distributed it.

“The moment she discovered this, she considered her life ruined and was in absolute despair. Hwang apologised and acknowledged the victim’s outrage but tried to explain that what he had done was not technically illegal. This claim itself is not only ridiculous but it makes one question Hwang’s concept of boundaries.”

Lee Eun-eui, pictured in 2018, says “the victim is in such a state of disbelief”  (Photo: YELIM LEE/AFP via Getty Images)

An eight-month investigation led to Hwang being informed last week that he was being indicted for alleged breaches of South Korea’s Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office had also considered adding secondary charges against Hwang and his legal representatives for allegedly revealing details that could identify the first woman in the video but decided in the end not to take it any further.

“When the person who shared the video online was identified as Hwang’s sister-in-law, Hwang had urged the victim to settle and cooperate,” said Lee Eun-eui. “When the victim persisted and refused to settle, Hwang and his legal team decided to release personal data about the victim, including her marital and employment status.

“The victim felt so threatened and scared she contemplated suicide. The victim is still in a state of shock, very distressed and uneasy about the entire ordeal. The fact she still has no idea how Hwang was able to obtain the video is troubling, and the fact it is out in the open makes her very nervous. Not only is this stressful to the victim herself, but to her entire family as well.”

Lee Eun-eui has become a prominent figure in Seoul since winning a lawsuit relating to the sexual harassment she experienced while working in sales for Samsung Electro-Mechanics, a company so large and powerful in South Korea that the country is often referred to as the “Republic of Samsung.” She built a new career as a lawyer and became a powerful ally for the #MeToo movement helping other South Korean women with sex-abuse cases.

“There is really no way to take back what has happened, and there are no words to describe how much the victim has suffered,” she said of the Hwang case. “I know this may be a strange comparison but, if this was a case of rape, perhaps the victim could heal over time, knowing that it was a one-off event that she can work through to bring some closure. However, digital sexual abuse is a completely different story.

“If Hwang hadn’t secretly filmed and hidden this video for such a long period of time, perhaps this wouldn’t have become the situation that it is now, where something so personal has been widely distributed on the web, open for anyone to view and download. This is not something we can take back, ever. Even in the midst of all this, Hwang is making the victim out to be a liar and adding insult to injury.”

Hwang plays against Portugal at the 2022 World Cup but his football future is now uncertain (Photo: Ayman Aref/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Hwang, whose career began in his homeland at Seongnam FC and included two successful years with Gamba Osaka in Japan, has declined to respond to these comments or make any statement. His legal representatives have not responded to an approach from The Athletic.

As for Forest, everything has worked out in a way they could never have imagined, given that the idea at the time of Hwang’s signing was that he would play for Olympiacos of Greece and not for them in the Premier League. The deal was arranged via Forest because both clubs are owned by the Greek billionaire Evangelos Marinakis.

As it turned out, Hwang’s season-long loan to Olympiacos in 2022-23 was cut short, leading to a short-term loan arrangement with FC Seoul in the January, and when he arrived in Nottingham for the first time, his only involvement for manager Steve Cooper’s team was as an unused substitute in two of their first three matches of last season. Nuno, appointed after Cooper was fired in December, had zero dealings with Hwang until recently, when the player reported for pre-season training.

Forest are aware of the allegations but have decided at this stage not to take any action of their own. Hwang, in other words, remains available for selection, even if it has always been the case that Forest’s intention was to move him out this summer. Even before all this blew up, it was clear he had no real future at the City Ground.

For the time being, however, Forest are paying Hwang’s salary and have a player on their books whose alleged offences risk putting off many potential buyers.

In January, Hwang was made the subject of a travel ban preventing him from leaving South Korea. This, it was reported, was because he had declined to be interviewed by the police on December 27, having already been spoken to three times in the previous six weeks. Hwang, it was reported, had complained that the questioning was excessive.

The travel ban was dropped 10 days later and the following week he joined Alanyaspor of Turkey’s top-flight Super Lig on loan for the rest of the season.

Forest are working out what to do next and, in the meantime, the lawyers in Seoul are preparing for a trial.

“Hwang is celebrated here as a beloved footballer for the Korean national team and, as such, I think he is getting special treatment and leniency from all aspects of this process,” says Lee Eun-eui. “The victim feels she is fighting an uphill battle, but she truly hopes that justice will be served because she believes in the truth.”

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(Photos: Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert’s extended suspension from Churchill Downs was rescinded Friday, more than three years after he was banned over Medina Spirit’s failed post-Kentucky Derby drug test.

Baffert issued a statement taking responsibility for Medina Spirit’s failed drug test after the 2021 Kentucky Derby. 

The horse was disqualified after the test, and Mandaloun was named the winner of the race.

“I accept responsibility for Medina Spirit’s positive test in the 2021 Kentucky Derby,” Baffert’s statement said. “I am responsible for any substance found in the horses that I train, and I have paid a very steep price with a three-year suspension and the disqualification of Medina Spirit’s performance.

“I understand and appreciate that Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission took steps to enforce the rules that they believed were necessary to protect the safety and integrity of horse racing and the reputation of the Kentucky Derby. My family and I want to put this behind us and get back to doing what we love to do without any more distraction or negativity. I very much look forward to returning to Churchill Downs and getting back to the Winner’s Circle.”

DORNOCH WINS 156TH BELMONT STAKES AT SARATOGA

Jockey John Velazquez, left, and trainer Bob Baffert talk in the winners circle after their horse, National Treasure, won the 148th running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course May 20, 2023, in Baltimore.  (Rob Carr/Getty Images)

Churchill Downs said it was satisfied with Baffert’s statement and reinstated him.

“All parties agree that it is time to bring this chapter to a close and focus on the future. Baffert is welcome to return to any of CDI’s racetracks, including our flagship Churchill Downs Racetrack, and we wish him and his connections good luck in their future competitive endeavors,” Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen said.

A war of words ensued after Baffert was banned, but his horses were able to compete in other legs of the Triple Crown. His horse, National Treasure, won the Preakness last year.

Trainer Bob Baffert watches the third race ahead of the 149th running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course May 18, 2024, in Baltimore. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)

Baffert will return to Churchill Downs next year to try and officially get a seventh win.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Margaret Abbott, the first American woman to win an Olympic event, died at age 76 without knowing of her pioneering feat.

The 1900 Games in Paris were the first that allowed women to compete, but also so nascent and unorganized that Abbott spent the rest of her life under the impression she’d merely won a local golf tournament. It didn’t help that her prize was a gilded porcelain bowl and not a gold medal.

Paula Welch, now professor emeritus at the University of Florida, unearthed Abbott’s milestone decades later. It was a revelation that even surprised Abbott’s son, Philip Dunne.

“It’s not every day that you learn your mother was an Olympic champion, 80-odd years after the fact,” Dunne wrote in a 1984 Golf Digest article.

There will be no mistaking such epic moments for female competitors at the 2024 Paris Games. If Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, triumphs again, if charismatic sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson breaks away from the pack, if world-record holder Katie Ledecky adds to her collection of seven swimming golds, they’ll relaunch as international media sensations by daybreak.

The transformation underscores just how much women have reshaped the Olympics since the fledgling 1900 competition, when only 22 of the 997 athletes were female. The Winter and Summer Games of long ago have emerged into platforms where the women are household names just as much as the men. The 2024 Paris Games are set to be the first to feature as many female athletes as male.

For most of the 1980s and ’90s, few female athletes in the United States were as famous as Jackie Joyner-Kersee. The stylish, personable star of USA Track & Field set numerous world records and won six Olympic medals, including three golds.

She understands the power of this juncture in women’s sports history. And in grand Olympic style, she’s ready to pass the torch.

“What I love is the respect that I see from this generation,” Joyner-Kersee, 62, told The Athletic. “But you also want them to have their moments. I think that’s very important. My era was my era. I did what I did, but what can I pass on to you that can help you?

“With (the) Olympics around the corner, with what Sha’Carri Richardson was able to do becoming world champion, and Sydney (McLaughlin-Levrone) running under 51 seconds in the 400 hurdles, the excitement around women’s athletics (is growing).”

Biles, who has 37 Olympic and World Championship gymnastics medals, headlines an impressive group of U.S. female athletes headed to Paris. There also is Richardson, Ledecky and gymnastics star Suni Lee, as well as the U.S. women’s basketball, water polo and soccer teams.

Joyner-Kersee knows just how life-changing Olympic glory can be.

“Every time I was on the podium,” she said, “I always thought about my community of East St. Louis (Ill.), and then also about the coaches who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”

Her gratitude extends to an even earlier Olympic sensation. Wilma Rudolph was the breakout star of the 1960 Summer Games in Rome, where she became the first American woman to win three track and field gold medals (100 meters, 200 meters and the 400-meter relay) at a single Olympics. She became a household name in Italy, along with other male U.S. Olympic standouts such as boxer Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), basketball star Oscar Robertson and decathlete Rafer Johnson.

Rudolph made numerous TV appearances and earned a slew of honors, including the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year Award in 1960 and 1961. She retired from competition in 1962 and went on to teach, coach and run a community center, among other endeavors, though her Olympic accomplishments on the track remained her best known.

Her fame put her in a position years later to offer advice to Joyner-Kersee. That conversation took place after the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, after Joyner-Kersee left with a silver medal in the heptathlon and a whiff of disappointment. She narrowly missed out on the gold with which she later would be synonymous.

Rudolph, a broadcaster during those 1984 Games, took Joyner-Kersee under her wing, and the two became close in the ensuing years. Joyner-Kersee said Rudolph’s advice on how to handle opportunities outside athletics helped her grow into a leader on and off the track — though she didn’t fully understand it at the moment.

“I’m hearing this (advice), and in my mind, it’s like, ‘What is she going on about?’” Joyner-Kersee said. “But now that you live it? I realized she was someone who was preparing me for what she knows is going to happen.”

Nearly 30 years later, Joyner-Kersee was able to fill that mentor role for an up-and-coming Olympic athlete. Since falling short of qualifying for the U.S. team in the heptathlon after a fall in the Olympic Trials before the 2020 games, Anna Hall has received regular encouraging calls from Joyner-Kersee while preparing for the 2024 Games. Hall recently qualified for the Paris Games and is considered a favorite to win gold in Joyner-Kersee’s signature event.

Joyner-Kersee is among the seminal figures profiled in a recently published book by Bonnie-Jill Laflin about the trendsetters who paved the way for this watershed era in women’s athletics. “In a League of Her Own: Celebrating Female Firsts in Sports” features chapters based on interviews with tennis star Billie Jean King, basketball groundbreaker Nancy Lieberman, gymnast Mary Lou Retton, race car driver Danica Patrick, former Oakland Raiders CEO Amy Trask and others who broke barriers for women in athletics. Several of the stars look back to their inspirations, citing the impact of women such as Rudolph and multisport athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias.

For Retton, who in 1984 became the first American gymnast in history to win an Olympic individual all-around gold, her inspiration was Nadia Comăneci. Retton praised the 1976 gold medalist, the first to earn a perfect 10.0 in Olympic history.

“Of course it was Nadia,” Retton said in the book. “That’s when it clicked for me. I was glued to the television set watching this little girl named Nadia from this different country, Romania. She was doing these amazing things with her body, and I’m like, ‘That’s it. That’s what I want to do, and there’s a name for it — it’s called gymnastics.’”

Mary Lou Retton became the first American gymnast to win an Olympic individual all-around gold in Los Angeles in 1984. (Jerry Cooke / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

Laflin, a San Francisco native, wrote the book to ensure future generations understood that today’s magazine covers and boffo TV ratings were a long time coming. “I wish I’d had a book like this to understand that it’s not going to be easy,” she told The Athletic. “There are going to be struggles, and you’re not going to be accepted. I think those are the things that women are now able to see and have a little bit of guidance to try to navigate through it.”

Because of Joyner-Kersee’s unique blend of talents, there is arguably no one better positioned to appreciate the current boom of interest in women’s sports, with college basketball dominating the national narrative more than it ever has, the WNBA increasing in popularity, college volleyball matches setting attendance records and Team USA preparing for what might be the most watched Olympics in a decade after the 2020 Games were heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Melissa Stockwell grew up wanting to be an Olympic gymnast after being inspired by the biggest star of her era, Retton. She told The Athletic that at youth gymnastics meets, she would envision standing on the floor listening to the national anthem after scoring a perfect 10.0.

Stockwell, who also got a chapter in Laflin’s book, had the chance to represent her country on the podium, but her triumph came as a Paralympic triathlete after she, a former U.S. Army officer, became the first female American soldier to lose a limb in active combat. Stockwell’s vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2004.

Six months into her stint at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, she noticed a flyer on the wall promoting an informational session about the Paralympic Games. She attended the session led by Persian Gulf War veteran John Register, a two-time U.S. Paralympian who reinvented himself as a competitive athlete after becoming a leg amputee in 1994.

“There were a few of us in the room, but it felt like he was talking directly at me,” Stockwell said. “I left that room and somehow, some way, knew I wanted to be a Paralympian and represent our country.”

Stockwell eventually became the first Iraq War veteran to qualify for the Paralympic Games, in swimming, in 2008. She later captured a bronze medal as a triathlete at the 2016 Games and stood on the podium with two other Americans — on the profound date of Sept. 11.

“It will go down as one of the greatest moments of my life,” Stockwell said. “Obviously, it’s Sept. 11 and I’m wearing that Team USA uniform. … Being on that podium is a moment that I will never, never forget.”

Joyner-Kersee’s thoughts of her times on the medalists podium centered on those who supported her journey to Olympic glory. Since her retirement from competitive athletics, she has tried to pay back those who helped her reach her dreams, dedicating her life to training the next generation of athletes and leaders through her Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation. She also supports athletes trained by her husband, legendary track and field coach Bob Kersee.

“Through sports, you learn a lot about leadership, the teamwork and how all these skills are transferable beyond the playing field,” she said. “You learn to appreciate one another, but you also learn a lot about what it is you want to do. You learn about your own self-confidence, but also, how can I get someone else to feel that same way?”

The 2012 Summer Games in London were the first in which women competed in all the sports on the program. Since 1991, any new sport seeking to join the Olympic program must have women’s competitions.

Many Olympic champions feel compelled to keep the momentum going. Joyner-Kersee believes the growth of women in sports has made an impact well beyond the playing field.

“You look at women in athletics from the standpoint that you look at the leadership role — they aren’t just players now,” she said. “You are looking at them as leaders of universities — athletic directors — and being at the table to brainstorm.

“You bring other people in to really understand that someone might not be the best athlete, but they bring something that’s very tangible, that is going to make a company a huge success.”

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photos: Jamie Squire and David Madison / Getty Images)