Anyone coming within 50 kilometers of these two nations-which, at their closest point, is all the ocean that separates them-can sense the social ripples, and the inevitable loss of face, that defeat in this bidding war will bring. At the heart of it, there are Koreans and Japanese capable of a purer appreciation of sporting values than the largely corrupted Western ideal; yet even they cannot separate sport from politics, cannot ignore the brooding enmity that still lingers from the 35-year Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula, that only ended with World War II.
When the verdict is announced at midday on June 1 in Zurich, Switzerland, the impact will be felt in both the presidential Blue House in Seoul and the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo. The desire on both sides to host the World Cup Finals is almost beyond price. Witness Republic of Korea’s proposal to give away all of its profits from the event, (anything from US $78 million to US $420 million) to the world’s 194 foot balling nations; or Japan’s plan to fill empty stadiums around the country with hi-tech, 3-D "virtual reality" screenings, using the income to set up a fund to promote soccer far and wide into the 21st century.
First, though, they have to win a majority vote from the 21 members of the executive committee of FIFA, football’s world governing body. The moment the verdict is announced, I’m sure my mind will spin back to his proverb spoken by a famous Republic of Korean in 1979: "Even if the rooster is strangled, the dawn will still arrive without fail."
They were the words of then jailed dissident Kim Young-sam, now president of Republic of Korea. Like most Koreans, President Kim is a football fan.
In Japan. where the rise of soccer, and with it the J. League, has been a relatively recent phenomenon, the quest for World Cup 2002 is summed up by the slogan: "four million spectators, 40 billion viewers"-a reference to the projected television audience for the 64 games involving 3 nations, and the three weeks of global exposure the tournament will bring for the host nation’s trade and technology, its lifestyle, and its potential for everything from tourism to political acceptance.
Put bluntly, Japan and Republic of Korea are competing to be the future hub of the East Asian region, and World Cup 2002 is a catalyst that money alone cannot buy. The beauty of sport, and of the contagious spread of soccer in particular, lies in its ability to cross all boundaries of race creed or religion and to impose a common set of principles on all players. The danger is that, if wrongly used, it can have widely divisive repercussions, certainly far beyond those of the territorial dispute that resurfaced this year over a tiny, barely inhabited island that lies between Japan and Republic of Korea.
The claims to fishing rights, to marine wealth, to ownership of a dot that the Koreans call Tokdo and the Japanese know as Takeshima, are local differences. The competition to stage the World Cup brings the focus of international attention and curiosity to the region. Both sides will tell you the real event, the measure of how far Asia has advanced in world esteem and global importance, is that a World Cup should come here at all; that it is Asia’s prize, not that of one nation or the other. If that were truly so, the two sides would have embraced early, tentative suggestions for a joint Japan-Korea hosting, with the two countries-sharing the mammoth costs. The building of new stadiums alone will cost US $1.33 billion in South Korea.
They did not. Neither did FIFA seriously offer to broker a share tournament. So there will be a winner and loser on June l, and some people will have to be immensely statesman-like to avoid crowing on the one side, and overreacting to potential humiliation on the other.
When and where was the verdict announced about last World Cup Finals to be held both in Republic of Korea and Japan