Football is sometimes likened to the "heavy industry" of sports in North Korea, an indication that it is regarded as an important first priority policy. It was indeed a tremendous morale booster not only for the North's sportsmen and women, but also the entire society when the North Korean women's football team won the trophy in the recent Asian Women's Football Championships, beating their Japanese counterparts 2-0. The players received a hero's welcome back home.
The rapid growth of the North's women's football teams is attributed to persistent support extended by Pyongyang authorities and successful expansion in the number of woman players, according to Yun Myong Chan, former North Korean national football team coach. When the first women's football team was launched in 1980, public response was so cool that it failed to develop into an official team. Most people perceived women's football as a sport not only disgracing the "elegance of Korean women," but also as a leisure sport played in capitalist countries.
When a nameless women's soccer team was formed in South Pyongan Province in 1983, the public response improved little. North Korean sports officials, learning that women's football was a worldwide event, however, sponsored in 1986 pilot women's football matches with Kim Jong Il attending. As Kim, enthralled by the matches, instructed the officials to "positively support" the sport, a new entity came into being to look after women's soccer, and the April 25 Sports Group (military), the Mecca of sports in the North, inaugurated a women's soccer team. 12 such teams have subsequently been born - among them Amnokgang (the Yalu), Ri Myong Su, Locomotive, Wolmido Island, South Pyongan Provincial and Hamhung Railroad Bureau teams.
North Korean public attention and response to the sport have risen since the North became runner-up in the 9th Asian Women's Football Championships held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1993.
In addition to provincial teams, quite a few schools have organized girls' soccer teams, with the nmber of women students aspiring to become soccer players increasing rapidly. Women's football has formally been included in various sports events, and outstanding players are given opportunities to move on to teams in the capital.
Even in the face of the serious food shortages, the special preferential treatment of top-class football players, both men and women, has remained intact and 1.5kg of meat is supplied to each everyday. Enthusiasm for football is so high that budget outlays for other sports are diverted to soccer sometimes. Cho Sung Ok, chosen as the best player in the recent championships, Ri Kum Suk, who garnered the largest number of goals with 15, and Jin Byol Hui, who scored three goals in the semi-final match against China, have emerged as international stars.
Unlike the heightened prestige of the North Korean national women's football team, the men's team has long been in a slump. It may be quite a while before the North Korean national men's football team that advanced to the third round in the 1966 London World Cup Tournament recovers that honor. Responsible for the ill fate are not only the North's economic woes and stagnant social atmosphere, but also "political whirlwinds" that grip sports as well.
The North Korean national men's soccer team has undergone the ordeal of having to have all members replaced twice. The first occasion came with the very team that distinguished itself at the 1966 World Cup Finals when all the members, implicated in the purge of the Kapsan faction, were either imprisoned or sent back to provincial cities. Because the then deputy premier Pak Kum Chol, who was accused of engaging in anti-party and anti-revolutionary activities, took charge of sports affairs, even players as well sports officials had to bear the brunt of punishment. Reputed top-players Shin Yong Kyu, Ri Chan Myong and Rim Jung Son, and senior coach Myong Rae Hyon, accused of coming from ideologically unfavorable families as well, sustained severe hardship. Players Bak Sung Jin, Kong Shi Hak and Yom Chol Su were incarcerated in the Yodok Concentration Camp.
The second ordeal came when the North Korean national men's eleven were disqualified in the preliminaries for the 1994 World Cup Tournaments held in the United States. In the preliminaries their South Korean counterparts, among others, defeated them. An outraged Kim Jong Il was reported to have banned sending abroad "teams that are not competent enough to win international matches." All football circle leaders and the players were replaced. The Sports Committee's senior party secretary O Dok Ryong, organization secretary Ri Hui Jae, vice chairmen Ri Myong Song and Soh Un Hae, and vice chairman in charge of external affairs Hwang Bo Yong were relieved of their posts and banished to coal mines.
Then the head coach and team leader, Yun Myong Chan, was demoted to a laborer at the Pyongyang Sports Equipment Factory. Team captain Bang Kwang Chol, goal keeper Kim Yong Ho, sweepers Kim Yong Il, Yun Jong Su and Kim Kwang Min were immediately expelled from active membership, and the remaining players were made to quit playing in one or two years. As they were not involved in political offenses, it is said, they were not subject to more serious forms of punishment.
North Koreans are frantic about football their desire to see their national men's football team restore its past glory is strong.
(Kang Chol-hwan, nkch@chosun.com)
