JAPAN-SOUTH KOREA: Co-Hosting the World Cup – The Big Compromise

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jun 5 1996 (IPS) - Now that the euphoria has died down in Tokyo and Seoul at being jointly awarded the 2002 World Cup, the public and media in Japan and South Korea are asking pointed political and economic questions about the co-hosting of the giant event.

“Can we really be friendly with the South Koreans,” asks Japanese football fan Yukio Saito. “I am worried that we have started thinking of each other more as rivals than as friends.”

“It’s a great decision but can we really make it work?” one Japanese government employee asks.

Just the naming of the football spectacular is expected to become a major issue, far less which country should be given the right to host the opening ceremony or the finale game of the four to six- week long tournament.

Should it be called the South Korea-Japan World Cup or the Japan- South Korea World Cup? Seoul’s largest English daily the ‘Korea Herald’ suggests the ‘Asian World Cup’ might be a workable compromise.

But would this be acceptable to the governing International Football Federation (FIFA) which announced the historic decision last Friday from its headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland?

If it does come down to that, it ought to be since compromise will have to be the name of the game if the first ever World Cup to be held in Asia is to be a success.

“There are potential problems that cannot be solved by Japan and South Korea alone and I expect co-hosting will be carried out under FIFA leadership,” vice chairman of the Japan Football Association, Saburo Kawabuchihe told reporters in Zurich after the announcement.

Many compromises lay ahead if the fierce pride of the two nations and their traditional bitter rivalries — temporarily set aside because neither wanted to lose the right to host the event — is not to get in the way of a successful finals and worst yet, the rocky road to improved bilateral relations.

The stakes are high, and already the conservative elements of the two societies are predicting the worst.

“The decision no doubt is a devastating blow to Japan’s soccer executives who have strived so hard to get the World Cup held in our country,” says the “Sankei Shinbun”, a leading conservative Japanese daily.

The paper laments the FIFA decision and warns of dire consequences between Japan and South Korea — both politically and on the sports field — as a result of co-hosting the finals.

In a front page article on Sunday, Sankei writer Hikari Okajima predicts that South Korea will seek to corner Japan into making impossible compromises on the political and economic fronts to ensure a smooth World Cup.

The article goes on to berate the Japanese government for compromising on the co-hosting of the event, and suggests they have set a precedent that can only lead to disaster in its negotiations on contentious bilateral issues.

Among those issues are claims by both Japan and Seoul on a group of islets, rich in mineral and fishing resources, in the Japan Sea. The two are also at odds over what South Korea says is a “lack of remorse” by Japan over atrocities committed during its colonisation of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945.

Only on Tuesday, a Japanese lawmaker in the ruling coalition touched a raw nerve when he told reporters that war-time sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese army were not forced into prostitution.

Seisuke Okuno, a former minister of education, said the women simply responded to recruitment into a “commercial activity”. Okuno leads a group of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Diet members opposed to Japan admitting it waged a war of aggression during the second World War.

The right-wing lobby group is against any apology being issued by Japan to the 100-000 to 200,000 Asian ‘comfort women’ — the majority from the Korean peninsula then under Japanese rule — who were forced into sexual slavery during the war years.

“These are issues that must be resolved before the event can be held,” observes the “Youmiri Shinbun”, Japan’s largest daily. Then, it goes on to say that the actually format of the finals will have to be agreed on at a very early stage.

Politics and pride aside, hosting the World Cup involves big money.

Both countries poured in more than 10 billion yen (100 million dollars into their campaigns to earn the right to host the finals, and they both now expect to reap big rewards in television rights, tourism spin-offs and ticket sales.

There are many obstacles ahead, but the potential rewards are equally tremendous, notes South Korean sports writer Kim Kyung-ho of the Korea Herald. “It marks the first time the two countries, more accustomed to confrontation than harmony, will have to cooperate in sharing a major international event.”