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Forty-five days after he left, Korean-American NFL star Hines Ward (30) has returned to the land where he was born, announcing that he will continue to help mixed-race children here.
The man named ¡°most valuable player¡± at this year¡¯s Super Bowl landed at Incheon in a shirt that read "Taeguk Warriors Fighting" to support the national squad in another kind of football in the colors of the Red Devils, their official support club. He is joined by his mother Kim Young-hee (59), his wife Simone (29) and his two-year-old son Jayden on this five-day trip. Ward told reporters he was happy to be back and had missed Korean food. He returns to establish a foundation in aid of biracial children who face discrimination here. Simone Ward said after her husband boasted to her about his mother's homeland, she had been looking forward to the trip.
Asked about his enthusiasm for what Americans call soccer to distinguish it from Ward¡¯s brand of football, Ward said he believed Korea has a fine team and promised to root for it with a passion.
A crowd of some 300 fans gave a warm welcome to the athlete and his family at the airport. To prepare a program that will air before the Super Bowl in February next year on U.S. broadcaster CBS, a group of journalists will dog the athlete¡¯s every step over the next few days.
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Korean-American NFL star Hines Ward arrives at Incheon Airport with his family on Friday afternoon./Yonhap
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True to his word, Ward and party proceeded straight to Seoul Plaza and joined fans gathered there in their "Dae-han-min-gook" chants of support for the national football team and then headed over to the World Cup Stadium to watch an appraisal match between Korea and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
On Monday he will hold a press conference to announce concrete plans for his foundation and meet with Prime Minister Han Myung-sook.
Ward will also sign contracts to appear in ads for the Korea Post and Korea Exchange Bank. The combined modeling fees are rumored to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of which will go to the new foundation.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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