28.Jul.2010 North Korean Team Reprimanded

From: http://sports.ca.msn.com/top-stories/cp-article.aspx?cp-documentid=25017188

North Korea World Cup team reprimanded

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea’s soccer team and coach have been reprimanded for losing all three games at the World Cup in South Africa, a news report said.

The team and coach Kim Jong Hun were summoned to a meeting at the People’s Palace of Culture in Pyongyang on July 2, the U.S.-financed Radio Free Asia reported Monday.

Sports Minister Pak Myong Chol was among some 400 government officials, athletes and others at the six-hour closed-door session, the report said.

Team members were forced to reprimand their coach at the end of the gathering, the report said.

Japan-based players Jong Tae Se and An Yong Hak were exempted from the meeting, RFA said.

Competing in its second World Cup finals after an absence of 44 years, North Korea exited at the group stage, beaten 2-1 by Brazil, then lost to Portugal 7-0 and to Ivory Coast 3-0.

The report cited two unidentified sources in North Korea and a Chinese businessman named Yu, described as knowledgeable about North Korea affairs.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the country’s main spy agency, said Wednesday it could not immediately confirm the report.

Groups in Seoul that monitor information out of North Korea said they could not corroborate the report, and there was no mention of any such meeting in Pyongyang’s state media.

A veteran of North Korea’s 1966 squad had previously said the team would be receive a warm welcome despite their poor performance.

“Now when the Korean team gets home, officials and crowds of people will go to the airport to welcome them,” Pak Du Ik, who led his country to the quarter-finals in England 44 years ago, told television news agency APTN in Pyongyang last month.

“We have learned a lesson from the three World Cup matches, we accumulated experience and we found an answer to how to improve our football.”