What Really Happened To North Korea’s World Cup Coach
WHEN North Korea’s World Cup team lost 1-2 to Brazil in their opening rubber, the news was positive and hopeful:
Kim Yong Gyu, 45, a researcher of the Academy of Sports Science, said the strong mental power displayed by the Korean footballers in the first match with Brazil, which won the World Cup five times, betokens good results of the Korean team in other matches.
No other reports appeared on the North Korean news service. The World Cup ended on that day – before the lads lost 7-0 to Portugal and went down 0-3 to the mighty Ivory Coast.
North Korea’s World Cup Fans Are Chinese: NSFW
The team then got together at the auditorium at the Working People’s Culture Palace in North Korea and were subjected to a “grand debate” in which it was discussed how they had let down the “ideological struggle”.
It’s a great panel show, a kind of Question of Sport with bite. In the What Happens Next? round, head coach Kim Jong Hun appears before a live studio audience of 400 sports fans from the Ministry of Sports, Pyongyang University, Kim Il Sung University, and Kim Hyong Jik School of Education.
Kim Jung Hun is accused of “betraying the Young Gen. Kim Jong Un,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s anointed heir.
Suggestions are that the coach is expelled from the Workers’ Party (which sounds like a reward for failure; not quite in Fabio Capello’s £6million-a-year- league but, nonetheless, a reward), and sent to a labour camp.
This news comes from an unnamed Chinese source, a man who was on a trade trip to North Korea. Given the nature of close ties between the North Koreans and Chinese, the news should be taken a pinch of the salt Kim Jung Hun might be mining of a day.
The reality is quite different. North Korea is not an oppressive regime but one of enlightenment, bounty and ten nymphomaniacs to every footballer. The trick is keeping all the good stuff for the North Koreans and Chinese, and not letting the rest of the world in on the location of the country’s Springs Of Youth, Champagne Lakes and verdant countryside where giants walk with fairies and the likes of Lord Lucan, Shergar, Glenn Miller, Raoul Wallenberg, Owain Glyndŵr and the crew of the Lucitania never want to leave.
We can reveal that Kim Jung Hun has been rewarded for his efforts to keep North Korea unattractive to the foreign holidaymakers with a harem, a solid gold house and free lifetime entry to Mr Kim’s Foie Gras ‘n’ Caviar House…
In Pictures: North Korea Beat Portugal 0-8 As Kim Il Ronaldo Runs Riot
World Cup Photos: North Korea Beat Brazil 1-2
Posted: 31st, July 2010 | In: Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
