By Duncan Mackay
November 20 – FIFA will today revisit the long running case of South Korea’s Park Jong-woo and whether he should receive his Olympic bronze medal following his political protest which sparked a diplomatic row with Japan at London 2012.
Park waved a banner saying “Dokdo is our territory” referring to a territorial dispute between South Korea and Japan while celebrating his team’s 2-0 win over their fierce rivals in the Olympic bronze medal match at Wembley Stadium in August.
As a result, he was prevented from receiving his medal because political protests are banned under the rules of the Olympic Charter.
The Korea Football Association (KFA) claimed last month that Park had been sent a certificate confirming that he would receive the medal.
But that still has to be officially confirmed and the matter will again be on the agenda of FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee when it meets in Zurich today.
The Committee failed to reach a verdict when it previously heard the case in October.
Since then, the KFA chairman Cho Chung-yun has traveled to Switzerland to discuss the situation with FIFA officials, where he again reiterated that Park’s actions had not been premeditated and he just held up the sign after being handed it by a supporter.
A FIFA spokesman said that, even if a decision is reached today, it would not be announced for several days as a full report has to be written and translated before the outcome can be made public.
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