Former and current Premier League players Son Heung-min, Lee Kang-in, Hwang Heon-chan, Park Ji-sung, Ki Sung-yong, and other European players who were unable to donate blood in Korea due to their stay in Europe, including the UK, are now able to donate blood.

On the 4th, the Korean Red Cross announced in a press release that the ban on blood donation for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) has been eased, allowing more than 16,000 Koreans with experience in the UK and Europe to donate blood.

This is because the regulations restricting blood donation due to past stays in the UK and Europe have been changed since March 4th in accordance with the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Notice No. 2025-31.

The existing regulations classified those who had lived in the UK for more than one month from 1980 to 1996, those who had lived in the UK for more than three months from 1997 to the present, those who had lived in Europe for more than five years from 1980 to the present, and those who had received blood in the UK or France since 1980 as risk factors for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), and were thus restricted from donating blood in Korea for life.

Major players such as Son Heung-min, who is making history at Tottenham Hotspur in England after playing in the German Bundesliga, and Lee Kang-in, who is playing for Paris Saint-Germain in France after playing in Spain, were not able to donate blood due to the regulations.

However, with this change in the notice, the criteria for being classified as a risk factor for vCJD have been greatly relaxed, and blood donation in Korea is now possible. The Korean Red Cross announced that an employee of the Blood Management Headquarters actually participated as a domestic blood donor in accordance with the relaxed vCJD blood donation ban criteria.