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Ruffled feathers FIFA tries to smooth over Korea-Japan problems
Updated: Tuesday January 30, 2001 3:07 PM
CANNES, France (AP) -- In an attempt to iron out problems in the organization of the 2002 World Cup, FIFA has offered to station soccer management experts in South Korea and Japan. At a meeting with the heads of the 2002 organizing committees, FIFA general secretary Michel Zen Ruffinen also tried to defuse a row over Japan's demands to put its name ahead of co-host South Korea's on 2002 World Cup tickets to be sold to Japanese spectators. FIFA stood by the 1996 agreement that the title should be the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan. "We are aware of the sensitivity of the situation in Japan but we have decided it should be the same in any language," Zen Ruffinen said. But Zen-Ruffinen has come up with a proposal for the Japanese organizing committee to take home and study, FIFA spokesman Andreas Herren said. He declined to reveal details. Japan is unhappy that FIFA won't let it put its name first on Japanese language tickets to be sold at home, even though Japan agreed to the order of names back in 1996 in return for hosting the final match in Yokohama. The order of the countries' names carried a lot of pride for South Koreans, who still harbor deep feelings about Japan's past colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. Zen-Ruffinen met for six hours Monday with the two organizing committees on the sidelines of a Football Expo trade show in the southern French city of Cannes. Despite good progress in planning for the 2002 tournament, Zen-Ruffinen offered to "put at the disposal" of the organizing committees two people to help in day-to-day running of affairs, one based in Korea and one based in Japan. Herren said that top-level managers who worked on the successful Euro 2000 championship, which was co-hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands, had been approached. He refused to reveal names. The offer had been received favorably by both Japan and Korea, said Herren.
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