Celtic signed Oh Hyeon-gyu from Suwon Samsung Bluewings in the recent January transfer window. The 21-year-old striker was brought in to take the place of Giorgos Giakoumakis in the squad, who went on to join Atlanta United in the MLS after an eventful season-and-a-half with the Hoops.
In the process, Oh became the third South Korean player to represent Celtic. Ki Sung-yeung and Cha Du-ri were the two before him.
Celtic have grown immensely in popularity in Asia in recent times, following the arrival of Ange Postecoglou as manager and a number of players from the continent alongside him. The club have also signed the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi, Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda, Yosuke Ideguchi, Yuki Kobayashi and Tomoki Iwata in recent times. And now, it looks like Oh is going to get the Son Heung-min treatment in South Korea by having all of his matches broadcasted in his country.
As reported by Football Scotland, SPOTV will broadcast every Celtic match on their SPOTV NOW channel and a statement from the channel said:
"“There is a lot of demand from soccer fans who want to watch the matches of Korean leaguers who have entered Europe, so we decided to broadcast Oh Hyun-gyu’s match.“As the players are showing outstanding performance, we ask for a lot of support from soccer fans so that Oh Hyun-kyu can show a good performance.”"
South Korean channel make superb Celtic announcement
That is great news for Celtic to say the least. It will only help increase their popularity in South Korea and further grow their global brand, which is miles ahead of any other team in Scotland already.
As for Oh himself, it remains to be seen how his career turns out at Celtic. He has shown a bit of promise and already scored a couple of goals for the club, with one coming from the penalty spot.
At the same time, one cannot overlook that there is plenty of room for improvement. At the moment, Oh seems like a raw talent who needs to polish up several aspects of his game. He is nowhere near challenging Kyogo for the starting berth yet. But at the same time, it is important to remember that he is just 21 years of age. There is plenty of time for him to improve and get better.