Park Ye-eun joins Super League club Brighton

Park Ye-eun poses in a Brighton & Hove Albion shirt after signing with the club in an image shared on the team's official Twitter account. [BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION]

Brighton & Hove Albion on Monday announced the signing of midfielder Park Ye-eun, becoming the only top-tier team in Europe with two active Korean footballers.

Park, who formerly played for WK League club Gyeongju KHNP, joins forward Lee Geum-min at the Super League club.

Park is the third Korean player currently active in the Super League, alongside Lee and Tottenham Hotspur's Cho So-hyun, and the fifth Korean ever to play in the English top tier. Former Chelsea star Ji So-yun returned to Korea earlier this year after eight years with the London club, while Jeon Ga-eul finished a two season spell with Bristol City and Reading last year.

Park tends to play on the right wing and has picked up 10 caps with the Korean national team. She was a member of the Korean squad that finished second at the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup earlier this year.

“We’re delighted to welcome Yeeun to the club," said Brighton manager Hope Powell in a press release. "She is an energetic and versatile player and we feel she can give us a lot of good options in midfield.

“Obviously Lee knows her very well from their time playing for South Korea together. She is very keen to play in Europe and develop her game and we look forward to working with her.”

Lee and Park don't just share a history on the national team — both arrived in Brighton from Gyeongju, with Lee making the jump in 2019.

Speaking to K League United in December last year, Park discussed her dream to play overseas.

"From the moment I played football, it was always my aim to play abroad," Park told K League United. "It is my dream to play abroad before I retire. Those dreams grew very strong since 2019 when I started playing in ‘A’ matches. I think to improve myself I need to play abroad and compete with top-quality opponents and play with top quality teammates. As I continue to play in the national team, that dream is growing very strong in recent times."

With the signing, Brighton become the only top tier club in a major European league with two active Korean players in the same team.

Although Tottenham Hotspur also have two Korean players — Son Heung-min and Cho — they play in the club's men's and women's teams. Wolverhampton Wanderers also have two Korean players — Hwang Hee-chan and Jeong Sang-bin — but Jeong is currently on loan to Grasshopper Club Zürich and has never actually played for Wolves.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]