LOS ANGELES — Son Heung-min’s move to Los Angeles FC became one of Major League Soccer’s biggest transfers, but the South Korean superstar has revealed that LAFC was not initially his preferred destination.
What changed his mind was not simply the club’s offer or the prospect of playing in Los Angeles.
It was a conversation with LAFC co-president and general manager John Thorrington that ultimately convinced Son to make the move.
The revelation adds a fascinating twist to the blockbuster transfer that ended the South Korean captain’s historic 10-year career at Tottenham Hotspur.
‘LAFC was not my first choice’
When Son arrived in Los Angeles in August 2025, he acknowledged that joining LAFC had not originally been at the top of his list.
But after speaking with Thorrington, his thinking changed.
Son said the conversation made him reconsider the club and eventually convinced him that Los Angeles was the right place for the next chapter of his career. BBC Sport reported that Son described the discussion as something that “changed his heart.”
That personal connection became an important part of LAFC’s successful pursuit of one of the biggest names in Asian football.
For Thorrington and LAFC, landing Son was about much more than signing another attacking player.
It was about bringing a global football icon to a city with one of the largest Korean communities in the United States.
A blockbuster transfer that broke the MLS record
LAFC officially acquired Son from Tottenham in August 2025.
The club did not disclose the financial terms, but multiple reports put the transfer fee at approximately $26 million to $26.5 million, making it an MLS-record transfer at the time.
Reuters reported that the deal ended Son’s decade-long spell with Tottenham and surpassed the previous MLS transfer record.
The Los Angeles Times likewise reported that the fee exceeded the previous record of $22 million paid by Atlanta United for Emmanuel Latte Lath.
Son signed a Designated Player contract through 2027, with options that could extend his stay into 2028 and 2029. LAFC confirmed the contract structure in its official announcement.
Why Los Angeles made sense
The location was a major factor.
Los Angeles has a large Korean-American population, including the historic Koreatown community, giving Son an unusually strong cultural connection with the city.
LAFC saw that connection as an opportunity to bring together football, Korean culture and one of the most recognizable athletes in South Korea.
LAFC managing owner Bennett Rosenthal said the club’s ownership group had admired Son for years and viewed his arrival as a statement of the club’s ambition to become a global football force.
For Son, meanwhile, the move offered a chance to begin a completely different chapter after a decade in the Premier League.
Son left Tottenham as a legend
Son’s departure from Tottenham was never going to be an ordinary transfer.
He joined Spurs in 2015 after playing for Bayer Leverkusen and quickly developed into one of the most important players in the club’s modern history.
He made 454 appearances and scored 173 goals for Tottenham across all competitions, according to the club.
He also became the first Asian player to win the Premier League Golden Boot, sharing the award in the 2021-22 season after scoring 23 league goals.
In 2025, Son finally lifted a major trophy with Tottenham when Spurs defeated Manchester United in the Europa League final.
It was Tottenham’s first major trophy in 17 years—and Son lifted it as captain.
Reuters reported that Son had already decided that he had achieved what he wanted at Tottenham and believed it was the appropriate time to move on.
He arrived in MLS with enormous expectations
Son was not simply another designated player joining MLS.
He arrived as South Korea’s national-team captain, a Premier League Golden Boot winner, a former Puskás Award winner and a Champions League finalist.
LAFC’s official announcement noted that Son had scored 173 goals and provided 101 assists during his Tottenham career.
He had also represented South Korea at three World Cups and helped the country win the men’s football gold medal at the 2018 Asian Games.
That résumé immediately placed extraordinary expectations on his MLS career.
And LAFC knew exactly what it was getting.
Thorrington described Son as a proven winner and a world-class individual capable of elevating both the team and the surrounding community.
The move also changed MLS’s Korean market
Son’s arrival quickly became bigger than a football transfer.
His presence helped MLS deepen its connection with South Korean audiences.
In September 2025, Reuters reported that MLS secured multiyear broadcast agreements with Coupang Play and SPOTV to make LAFC matches available to Korean viewers.
The league explicitly connected the new broadcast partnerships to the attention generated by Son’s arrival.
That was a significant commercial development for MLS.
Son had effectively become a bridge between the American soccer market and millions of Korean football fans.
Son and LAFC quickly became a major attraction
The football side of the move also began producing results.
Son’s arrival gave LAFC another elite attacking option alongside Denis Bouanga, creating one of the league’s most dangerous attacking partnerships.
The Guardian later reported that the two forwards combined for a remarkable scoring run and that Bouanga credited Son with helping elevate his own performances.
The partnership also helped reinforce the idea that Son’s move was not simply a commercial signing.
LAFC expected him to make a genuine difference on the field.
And then came the 2026 World Cup
The timing of Son’s move to Los Angeles was particularly significant.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup was hosted across the United States, Canada and Mexico, putting North American football under an unprecedented global spotlight.
For Son, playing in Los Angeles also meant being based in the same region where South Korea’s supporters could follow him during the tournament.
In a 2026 interview with GQ, Son discussed his ambitions with LAFC and his hopes for South Korea at the World Cup, including the possibility of playing in Los Angeles during the tournament.
That made the move even more strategically important.
The biggest twist was not the money
The transfer fee grabbed the headlines.
The end of Son’s Tottenham career created the emotion.
But the most revealing part of the story may have been much simpler:
Son needed to be convinced.
LAFC did not merely win a bidding battle.
Thorrington apparently convinced Son that the club, the city and the project matched what he wanted for the next stage of his career.
That personal pitch helped transform a destination that was initially not Son’s first choice into the club he ultimately selected.
And that decision has since become one of the most consequential signings in MLS history.
From reluctant choice to Los Angeles superstar
Son arrived in America after spending 10 years competing at the highest level of European football.
He could have chosen a different destination.
Instead, one conversation helped change his mind.
LAFC ultimately secured a player who had already established himself as one of the greatest Asian footballers of his generation—and placed him in a city where his sporting influence could extend far beyond the pitch.
The question now is no longer why Son chose Los Angeles.
It’s how much bigger his LAFC legacy can become before his American chapter is over.
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