North and South Korea Just Played a World Cup Soccer Qualifier. No One Saw It

(Bloomberg) -- South Korea men’s national soccer team played in North Korea for the first time in almost three decades, with Kim Jong Un’s reclusive state doing all it could to make sure the world didn’t see the game live.

The game ended in a 0-0 draw with North Korea barring South Korean fans, media and TV broadcasters from the World Cup qualifier game Tuesday in its capital at Kim Il Sung Stadium, which its state media said can seat about 50,000 people. When the game kicked off, the stadium was almost completely empty, images released in South Korea showed, and North Korea’s main state TV station was broadcasting programming for children.

North Korea has pledged to provide some footage of the match -- just as Tottenham Hotspur forward Son Heung-min and the rest of the South Korean side are about to return home. South Korea, ranked 37th by FIFA, was the heavy favorite over North Korea, ranked 113rd.

The match was the first one the South Korean men’s national team has played in North Korea since a friendly in 1990. While President Moon Jae-in has staked his political capital in trying to improve ties with his neighbor, Pyongyang has refused his calls for talks, accused him of meddling in its discussions with the U.S. and tested a new short-range ballistic missile that can deliver a nuclear warhead to all of South Korea.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said North Korea showed no interest in allowing a live broadcast. “We’ve tried to feel out any sort of response from North Korea’s end regarding live broadcasts or sending a cheering squad, but there’s been no response,” the ministry’s spokesman, Lee Sang-min, told a briefing Monday.

North Korea intends to give the South Korean athletes and coaches a DVD of the match Wednesday afternoon, shortly before they board a flight leaving North Korea, according to a Unification Ministry statement.

FIFA said its President Gianni Infantino was scheduled to watch the match in Pyongyang, and two officials from the South Korea Football Association were on hand, posting photos of the empty stadium on its website.

Anthems, Flags

North Korea’s state media has shown its heavy hand in soccer coverage before, blocking out results when its team lost to arch-rival Japan. The two Koreas, technically still at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended without a peace treaty, rarely meet for competitive matches. When they have, politics has played a role.

They were in the same qualifying group twice for the 2010 World Cup, with each nation hosting a match in each round. While South Korea allowed for the North Korean anthem and flag to be on display for the matches it hosted, North Korea refused, forcing FIFA to move the matches to Shanghai.

The second time they met in Shanghai, North Korea, as the host, raised some ticket prices to triple what was charged the first time. South Korean sports officials saw the move as an attempt to drive out as many rank-and-file South Korean fans as possible.

The reclusive state is ill-equipped to manage patriotic displays by South Koreans on its soil, which would force it to explain why its capitalist neighbors are proud of their country and not keen to live under Kim’s leadership. North Korea’s propaganda machine has portrayed South Korea as being under the thumb of U.S. oppressors, calling the leaders of its neighbor henchmen of Washington.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz, Ruth Pollard

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