S. Korea plays N. Korea card in World Cup bid
S. Korea plays N. Korea card in World Cup bid
SEOUL (AFP): South Korea is playing the North Korea card and waving the Third World flag in its battle with Japan to stage Asia's first World Cup finals in 2002.
By offering to co-host the games with North Korea, South Korea is trying to seduce world soccer's bosses with the idea of becoming peacemakers to the divided but totally football-mad peninsula.
Chung Mong-joon, president of the Korea Football Association and passionate ambassador of the campaign for the 2002 World Cup finals, said co-hosting would push the two Koreas to step up efforts to reunite.
"Korea is now the last divided country in the world and the World Cup can definitely help the peace-making process and the eventual reunification of Korea," Chung said in an interview.
Joao Havelange, president of the International Football Federation (FIFA), has voiced support for a joint Korean bid. But Japan has the edge for the votes of the 21-member FIFA executive which will pick the venue in June 1996, insiders say.
Chung, a FIFA vice president, said that if Japan gets the World Cup, Tokyo would "demonstrate its power to the world."
"But if Korea hosts the tournament, it can distribute a message of hope for developing countries," he asserted, calling South Korea an "honor student" of the Third World.
Japan also has the advantage in infrastructure, funding and sponsorships, insiders say. Critics also maintain that outside Seoul -- which successfully hosted the 1988 Olympics -- South Korean facilities simply cannot cope.
Grown
The World Cup finals have grown so big, especially after USA '94, that Asian football boss Peter Velappan believes South Korea and Japan should co-host.
But Chung, 43, scoffs at this idea and dismisses charges that his country is not up to the task, which requires a far wider network of stadiums, hotels and other facilities than the Seoul Olympics.
Chung claimed Japan had sent overtures about co-hosting.
But Tadao Murata, a senior member of the Japanese bidding committee, said in Tokyo that "we haven't thought about it at all." He also said it would be a "very tough task" for South Korea to bring its facilities up to standard.
Chung said South Korea's bidding campaign budget was US$35 million.
Murata said Japan had set aside about $50 million and "if necessary, say, due to rising costs and others reasons, we may have to raise the amount. "
But South Korea has resources of its own, and Chung happens to be a son of the country's wealthiest man, Hyundai conglomerate founder Chung Ju-yung.
The younger Chung said South Korea was prepared to spend $800 million on stadiums. It is also building what is touted as Asia's largest airport and a high-speed train system.
The football chief, who holds a doctorate in international studies from Johns Hopkins University in the United States and is a member of South Korea's national assembly, believes his country is destined to be a global player.
Korean War
Born in 1951 at the height of the Korean War, Chung, like many of his countrymen, is bitter about Japan's 1910-35 colonial rule.
He said the fact that Japanese soldiers stayed on the peninsula after losing in World War II gave Soviet and US forces an excuse to occupy Korea, resulting in a communist North and capitalist South.
Chung said Japan had "an unfinished role" and must help Korea become one again -- by giving up its rival World Cup bid.
He is also contemptuous of Japan's sporting credentials, noting that South Korea had entered the World Cup finals four times -- 1954, 1986, 1990 and 1994 -- and even North Korea got in once.
"This is a remarkable record because other countries in Asia and Africa played only once or twice," he said. "Japan? Zero."