South Korea's Son Heung Min Refuses to Touch a Fan's iPhone for a Selfie For a Curious Reason

• Son Heung Min is not allowed to touch his fans’ phones when taking a selfie
• This is due to an odd clause in one of the South Korean's sponsorship deals
• A video has emerged online showing Son refusing to touch one fan's mobile

Son Heung-min declined to touch the phone of a fan who asked for a selfie, with the reason for his decision being an interesting one.

The forward is currently on international duty with his nation, South Korea and recently played the entire 90 minutes in a 0-0 draw against Wales.

Ahead of the Taegeuk Warriors' next game against Saudi Arabia on September 12, Son was captured on video interacting with one of the fans, who asked for a selfie.

In the video shared by Tiktok user Stevie_King, the fan offers her device for Son to take the picture but the former Bayer Leverkusen man politely folds his hands to decline.

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He then explains to the fan that he cannnot hold the phone but he was still happy for her to take a selfie.

Why Son refused to touch fan’s phone

It has now emerged that Son’s decision to refuse to touch the fan’s phone was purely because of his contract with a rival tech company.

As reported on SportBible, he was unveiled as the ambassador for the tech giants, Samsung in July 2022.

The South Korean, who won the Premier League Golden Boot in 2021/22, is no stranger to major brand deals as he has also partnered with Calvin Klein and TUMI.

In the video, it is easy to see the fan was using an iPhone - a brand which is in direct competition with Samsung. A quick tour of Son’s social media pages will reveal several posts of the forward promoting Samsung products.

One of his latest posts is one of him pushing the Everyday SmartThings with Son campaign.

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When Ronaldinho fumbled sponsorship deal

Speaking of sponsorships, Sports Brief also reported on the 2012 incident that saw Ronaldinho’s lucrative deal with Coca-Cola terminated, losing him hundreds of thousands of pounds.

At the time, ‘Gaucho’ had just joined Atletic Mineiro in his native Brazil, bringing an end to his stint in Europe. Despite this, many companies still wanted to captalise on his fame.

Among those companies was Coca-Cola, who offered the Brazilian a £500,000 a year deal to partner with them. However, this ended after a gaffe by Ronaldinho at a press conference.