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.”

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Court proceedings…

Casey Phair’s ascent to South Korea’s Women’s World Cup team in Australia and New Zealand can be traced to a chance encounter on a pitch in the U.S. state of Virginia in 2018.

It was there, at the coveted Jefferson Cup in Richmond, where a talented visiting youth club from New Jersey caught Phair’s attention. She was impressed with the team’s dazzling style of play, and how well they moved the ball. It didn’t faze her that her own Tennessee-based side lost that match by three goals.

Even in heavy defeat, Phair still managed to do what she’s known for: she dribbled through a sea of players and drilled the ball into the back of the net. Twice. Her performance was so impressive it stuck with Larry Hart, the opposition head coach in charge of the Players Development Academy’s (PDA) team of 12-year-old girls.

“She was a one-man wrecking crew,” Hart recalls, with a laugh. “I was like, ‘Who is this kid from Tennessee?’.”

It was an easy decision years later for Hart to welcome Phair to his team, where she recently tallied 20 goals in 10 games.

“This kid from Tennessee” is now New Jersey’s Casey Yu-jin Phair, who will enter the international consciousness of professional women’s soccer tomorrow (Tuesday) as a 16-year-old phenom who is the first…

The 2023 Women’s World Cup gets under way in Australia and New Zealand on July 20, with the U.S. hoping to navigate an expanded 32-team tournament to become the first country to win football’s biggest prize three times in a row.

They are the favourites, but will the four-time winners actually pull off the ‘three-peat’? What of England, European champions but decimated by injuries to key players as they attempt to win the tournament for the first time? Will Germany bounce back from losing the final of the Euros to lift the game’s biggest prize?

How will the likes of France, Spain and Canada perform after their preparations have been disrupted by disputes with their federations over the past few months?

And can we expect any surprises from any of the eight countries — Haiti, Morocco, Panama, Philippines, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Vietnam and Zambia — making their World Cup debuts?

Our expert writers give their verdicts on what they think will happen over the next five weeks.

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Flo Lloyd-Hughes, women’s football reporter

Winner: Germany. This is a very open tournament and there are four or five teams that have a good chance of winning the title. Germany are often the masters of their own downfall, but given their disappointment at the Euros last summer and their…

Let’s start with a few fun facts. 

Asisat Oshoala has been African women’s footballer of the year five times. She has won the Africa Cup of Nations three times. She has two Golden Boots and two Golden Balls at international tournaments: two each at AFCON and the Under-20 World Cup. 

She was the top scorer in Spain in 2021-22 and last season, notched a personal-best 21 goals for Barcelona — accompanied by three assists, which was comfortably more than her team-mates.

In 2019, she became the first African woman to score in a Champions League final. Two years later she became the first African woman to win a Champions League title. A year after that, she became the first African woman to be nominated for the Ballon d’Or. 

We could go on. There will certainly be better players at this World Cup, but there won’t be many as exciting to watch, or indeed many with a more interesting career story, than Oshoala. 

Born in Ikorodu, a coastal city about an hour’s drive from the Nigerian capital Lagos, Oshoala wasn’t exactly encouraged to pursue her sporting dreams as a child. Her parents would frequently not give her any food if she disobeyed them and went to play football, considering it a waste of time. They wanted her to become a lawyer instead. 

But when she was…

South Korea have called up 16-year-old Casey Phair to their 23-player squad for the Women’s World Cup.

Phair, who was born in the U.S. to an American father and a South Korean mother, will become the first mixed-race player of any gender to play for the Asian nation if she features at the tournament.

The forward has represented South Korea at youth level and has played for the Players Development Academy in the US.

South Korea head coach Colin Bell, the Englishman who previously managed the Republic of Ireland Women’s side, said on Wednesday that Phair “is not going as a passenger but as a valuable member of the squad and has every chance of getting into the team”.

He added: “I know as the first mixed-race player for Korea, men and women, it’s a highlight, it’s something new.”

“But as far as I’m concerned she’s still a kid and it’s my duty to protect her so she can blossom and really fulfil her potential.

“We’re taking care of her, she’s taken very well to the team. She’s in the squad on merit. She deserves, on her performance, to be selected.”

There are set to be other 16-year-olds competing at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Barcelona’s Giulia Dragoni was named in the Italy squad and made her senior debut in a friendly against

The 2023 Women’s World Cup is almost here. It is the ninth iteration of the tournament and the biggest yet as, for the first time, 32 teams will compete for the trophy.

That means a new format with more matches and more players, as well as some new rules that have not been in operation before.

Here’s a primer ahead of the biggest women’s football tournament in history.

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The basics

What is the Women’s World Cup?

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is an international tournament that pits the best national sides against one another every four years.

Where is it being held?

The tournament is being played in Australia and New Zealand.

It is the first Women’s World Cup to be hosted across two countries and the first World Cup (regardless of gender) to be hosted across two confederations — Australia are part of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and New Zealand are part of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).

When is it?

The first two games of the tournament — New Zealand vs Norway and Australia vs Republic of Ireland — will be played on July 20.

The group stage will conclude with the final two games in Group H a fortnight later on August 3.

The knockout stage will begin on…