From Daily Sports Online:
It came to light Feb. 22 that North Korea plans to allow Japanese supporters into the country for the World Cup final qualifying round between Japan and the DPRK to be held June 8 in Pyongyang. Japan Football Association Vice President Ogura Junji unveiled the news at a press conference in Tokyo. This is the first time North Korea has officially allowed Japanese sports fans into the country, in what promises to bring a large number of Japanese fans into a country with whom they do not have diplomatic ties.

According to those involved with Japan-DPRK relations, it is said that NK will allow from 2000-5000 Japanese supporters in the country. And NK has made promises to allow a 100-journalist, 50-cameraman media group to cover the Japan-DPRK match, however only on the condition that “coverage is limited to soccer.”

As this is an unprecedented number of Japanese traveling to the DPRK, there is expected to be some wrangling in finding accommodations and flights for all these people. Also, this plan may be affected by proposed sanctions on the country over the North’s kidnapping of Japanese nationals.

My Comment: Nice! This is bound to inspire more than a few interesting travelogues. Looks like the story’s already been covered in English. Oh well, I already translated it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005 at 11:05 am and is filed under Japan, Jappanica, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.