BBC put wrong names on World Cup goalscorer graphics in embarrassing slip-up

Hwang In-beom celebrates his equaliser against the Czech Republic.

Imagine if you were watching highlights of England at the World Cup, Harry Kane scored off a Jude Bellingham set-up, and the on-screen graphics credited the goal to 'Harry' with an assist by 'Jude'.

That is effectively what the BBC have done on their highlights of Thursday night's Group A clash between South Korea and the Czech Republic (or, yes, the Republic of Korea and Czechia, if that saves us suffering the very same kind of pedantry we are about to embark upon).

South Korea came from a goal behind to claim a 2-1 victory thanks to goals from Hwang In-beom and Oh Hyeon-gyu.

BBC render South Korean names the wrong way around in on-screen captions

After years of exposure to the likes of Park Ji-sung and Son Heung-min, you will know by now that Korean names are in 'reverse' order by English standards.

That is to say: the family name equivalent to a surname ('Park' or 'Son') is written and said first, while the given name equivalent to an English-language 'first name' comes afterwards.

The BBC credited the equaliser to 'In-Beom' instead of Hwang, with an assist from 'Kang-In' (Lee) (Image credit: BBC iPlayer)

However, the BBC's own on-screen graphics on their World Cup highlights of the game fail to make that distinction.

The Czechs' opener was given as to 'Krejci' with an assist by 'Coufal' - surnames both, of course - to confirm that the Beeb have not decided as a matter of policy to just be massively informal at this World Cup.

But South Korea's equaliser is given to 'In-Beom' with an assist from 'Kang-In' - which should really have read as a goal by Hwang, assist by Lee.

It was a similar story when Feyenoord's Hwang set up the winner ten minutes from time by teeing up substitute Oh... or 'Hyeon-gyu', as the caption read.

If we're being generous, it seems likely that the player names have been fed into a database and the captions are being pulled from that automatically.

The winning goal was credited to 'Hyeon-Gyu' (Oh) (Image credit: BBC iPlayer)

Nonetheless, it's something for the BBC to be mindful of for future games - and not just those involving South Korea.

In 2019, Japan asked foreign media to start using Japanese name order, which follows the same convention - although that call has gone almost entirely ignored, and the names are still being widely westernised by media and celebrities alike.

Ro Laren and Kira Nerys would be livid.