By Mark Baber
August 31 – The tenuous rapprochement between the two Koreas may see North and South Korea competing in a friendly for the first time in 10 years, according to an article in the English language Korea Joongang Daily, part of one of South Korea’s biggest newspaper groups.
Harking back to the last “unification football match” held in Seoul in 1990, the newspaper reports that: “Hopes are rising that South and North Korea may play a friendly football match for the first time in a decade, after the two countries reached an agreement last Tuesday to ease rising tensions on the peninsula.”
Korea Football Association (KFA) President Chung Mong-gyu will be visiting North Korea next month for the September 19 East Asian Football Federation (EAFF) executive meeting and last Tuesday’s agreements, which ended the recent stand-off over the alleged use of land-mines in the DMZ by the North Koreans and the use of loudspeakers on the border by the South Koreans, included calls for renewed civilian exchanges.
According to the South Korean report, Chung is expected to have a conversation with his North Korean counterpart, Han Un-gyong, who is also an executive member of the Asian Football Confederation, about re-opening friendly football games between the South and North.
Whilst the two sides have not played a friendly for 10 years, they do regularly compete against one another in the East Asian Cup – with the men’s event having been recently been won by South Korea and the women’s by North Korea.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jung-Un, a keen football fan and long-time supporter of Manchester United has praised the North Korean national teams for adopting the “guerrilla tactics”. first developed by the North Korean Communist Party in their fight against the Japanese, and may be keen to see resurrection of the unification game – particularly if it can be held in Pyongyang where it was won 2-1 by the North Koreans when it was last held in the North Korean capital.
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