North Korea’s World Cup debut elicited touching stories about the ragtag group of soccer fans “hand-picked” by the Communist regime to support their squad in South Africa. Turns out they were hand-picked for their skill at not being Korean. The UK’s Telegraph reported last month that China had already recruited actors and provided them with tickets to South Africa, so they could go and pretend to root for their sort-of allies. No North Korea citizen could possibly get a visa to leave the country and even if they could, they could never afford the bus trip to Pretoria. Even so, the fans and some media outlets went along with the ruse that they were loyal Koreans, even as Chinese officials admitted the truth to Reuters.
Watching the Brazil-North Korea game yesterday, I was struck by the oddity presented by a collection of North Korean fans who kept showing up on the live TV broadcast. How odd that fans from a country so desperately poor (most North Koreans have never seen a cell phone) could be outfitted from head to toe in such a garish and coordinated manner, no? Well, it turns out that those hundred or so fans aren’t even North Korean- they’re Chinese actors hired by the DPRK’s government to portray rabid North Korean fans. It would appear that the Hermit Kingdom got their money’s worth…though there were no reports on how many North Korean families might have been fed by the money paid to the actors.
Given what the world knows of what goes on north of the DMZ, it’s understandable why the DPRK’s government would refuse to let any North Korean nationals out of the country long enough to cheer on their boys in South Africa. It’s too bad, really; they missed a helluva game against the world’s best team, Brazil. North Korea, the world 105th-ranked team, gave Brazil a decent game, and even scored late in the second half of a 2-1 loss.
Sure, North Korea could have actually selected an elite group of propaganda-loving supporters to represent their country as spectators, but the last time they did that, the group of mini-skirted cheerleaders who attended a tournament in South Korea broke their promise not to reveal to their countrymen what they saw below the DMZ. They reportedly ended up in concentration camps.
The only real North Korean fans you’ll find are the escaped dissidents who still love their homeland—but they won’t be cheering too loudly, lest the Dear Leader’s goons track them down and haul them back for execution.
One of the truly sad and hypocritical things about the World Cup is that, though FIFA works hard to combat racism and promote fair play, nary a word of dissent has been raised by FIFA about North Korea’s brutal repression of its own people. FIFA might respond by claiming that the World Cup is a non-political celebration of soccer, which on it’s face is absurd. FIFA has simply chosen to ignore the well-documented brutality of Kim Jong-il’s regime for the sake of their multi-million-dollar quadrennial celebration. If FIFA can celebrate the end of apartheid in South Africa, surely it can raise a voice in protest on behalf of North Koreans, most of whom probably won’t even be able to watch their national team compete.
