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200 days and counting South Korean preparations on course for big kickoff
SEOUL (Reuters) -- There is one photograph in Chung Mong-joon's office that sums up the age-old attraction of soccer and the harsh reality for next year's World Cup. "You know who that is?" says South Korea's politically astute soccer chief, singling out a framed picture of himself with a Middle Eastern officer in combat fatigues. The military man in the snapshot is King Abdullah of Jordan, taken before he became monarch and when he was still commander of his country's Special Forces commando unit -- and head of the Jordan Football Association. It may seem longer, but it is just weeks since the September 11 attacks in the United States. And the big digital countdown screen on top of Seoul's city hall shows South Korea is close to 200 days away from the May 31 start of the month-long finals being co-hosted with Japan. Even before the suicide attacks took the lives of some 4,800 people, next year's World Cup was going to be different. FIFA has for the first time entrusted its biggest event to Asia and to twin hosts who are building 20 new stadiums -- 10 in each country, and half of them for football only rather than as multi-purpose sports venues. A huge World Cup water fountain in the middle of Seoul's Han River near the city's new soccer stadium was inaugurated this week and a state-of-the-art training camp opens within days. More importantly, most of the 20 venues are impressively ready or near completion, and now the move is on to finish what Chung calls "software" -- accommodation, transport and security. "It sounds a little crazy, a little too much," said Chung in an interview. "But we are sure with all the new infrastructure it will be a very successful World Cup." Yet Chung -- president of the Korea Football Association and a FIFA vice president -- is all too aware how much the world has changed, and with it the World Cup's focus. A recently renegotiated insurance deal with FIFA underscores that fact. "After the terrorist attacks in the United States, security, safety, became the most important concern," said Chung, who is also co-chairman of South Korea's World Cup organizing committee. "So far we paid attention to the hooligan problem," he said, referring to violent fans who have marred soccer events down the years. "This (terrorism) is a very new problem." Powerful tool Chung, who studied in the United States and is a potential successor to FIFA president Sepp Blatter next year, said FIFA and the two organizing committees had enough time not only to minimise the impact and plan security but also to give the event new meaning. "Following that terrorist accident, prevention of terrorism is very important. But prevention is a kind of minimum requirement. We hope we can produce a message of reconcilation, of human reconciliation, human harmony, during the World Cup," said Chung. "Anybody who tries to disturb football tournaments, they turn friends into their enemies." Chung said South Korea would invite leaders from across Asia and the Middle East to the opening ceremony as a gesture of peace to a region in sharper focus with U.S. attacks on militant targets in Afghanistan. "The World Cup and football is a very powerful tool." Chinese President Jiang Zemin -- whose vast and populous country has qualified for the finals for the first time -- has already accepted in principle South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's invitation to attend the ceremony. There is a good chance of an attention-grabbing friendly between the two sides. Chung said China's role would be crucial for the 2002 finals and for the future of soccer in the region. The potential viewing figure for next year's finals is a cumulative 60 billion people, 10 times the world's population. Before China qualified the figure was closer to 40 billion. That, said Chung, equals a lot of new television sets. It could also mean thousands of Chinese soccer tourists. Faint hope Chung advocates China hosting the next World Cup in Asia. He told Chinese fans just that over the stadium loudspeaker system right after their team beat Oman 1-0 in a qualifier in Shenjang on October 7 to win a place in the finals next year. "You can imagine the atmosphere," he said. It may take more than a megaphone to grab the attention of South Korea's neighbour and archrival -- North Korea. FIFA has a standing invitation to the North to host one or some of the World Cup games. Blatter may visit Pyongyang in November to try to persuade the North. But North-South diplomatic discussions are barely on track, and Pyongyang's anti-U.S. rhetoric is as rich as ever. Chung said North Korean officials were saying it was too late to talk about the World Cup. So, the signs are not good but Chung said the window remained open until the December 1 draw in the southern port city of Pusan when the 32 qualifiers are divided into eight groups. "The only thing FIFA can do is not to close the window of opportunity too early," he said, adding the World Cup was a chance to put the divided peninsula on the map, just as the 1988 Seoul Olympics had done. "We are still divided," he said. "Korea is the most armored area in the world. Almost two million young soldiers are confronting each other." The presence of many thousands of U.S. troops in the South and in Japan adds to security concerns. The U.S. State Department issued a warning about possible attacks in both countries even before September 11, and that warning remains in force. Chung said all possible measures were being taken to thwart terrorism. International cooperation was the key element. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi may visit South Korea for a second time later this year to help ensure the 2002 finals run smoothly, according to a senior Japanese official. Implicit is that both countries sense they need to coordinate more closely to avoid ending up with parallel parties. Rivalry, borne of historical emnity, would hardly be surprising. Yet Chung sees opportunity rather than threat. "This should be a festival of all of the Asian people," he said. "It should be one World Cup, one shared World Cup." Ticket sales unhurt by global slowdownFRANKFURT (Reuters) -- Global growth may be on the brink of recession but this has not hurt sales for next year's World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan, FIFA's official ticketing bureau said Friday. Packages aimed at the lucrative corporate market that follow a specific team all the way to the final were launched two weeks ago. But despite a price tag of up to US$23,700 per person, they have been almost sold out for the most popular nations. "We were a little concerned by the timing of the launch (of the corporate packages) because everywhere you read about companies cutting back," said Jaime Byrom of FIFA's World Cup Ticketing Bureau. "But to be perfectly honest, clients have not been putting on the brakes. I expect to have sold them all by mid-December, which is better than we would have hoped for a year ago," he told Reuters. Demand for the 3.2 million tickets on sale for the 2002 World Cup provides a useful indicator of the public's willingness to travel and spend on entertainment in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States. Such discretionary expenditure is hard to measure, particularly in Europe where sales data comes out with a long lag. So evidence from an event on the scale of the World Cup yields clues as to what is going on in the real economy. "We've sold tickets to residents of over 120 countries and every time that we have gone into a new sales phase, demand has exceeded our expectations," said Byrom. Any salesman worth his or her salt will claim the product is in short supply. But a visit to FIFA's Web site (www.fifa.com) confirms that many fixtures are indeed already sold out. That is comforting news for those depressed by the constant barrage of economic woe. Data this week showed that the U.S. economy had suffered its first contraction in a decade during the third quarter of this year, at a time when Europe and Japan are also weakening fast. This threatens the first synchronized world recession since the early 1980s and the spending behavior of households and companies will be crucial in dictating the outcome. If they postpone or simply cancel spending due to uncertainty on orders or job security, there is a risk of deepening the damage to aggregate demand. But they could decide that life, and business, must go on. For soccer this appears to be the case. "At the end of the day, you're talking about the World Cup," said Byrom.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. |
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