North Korea's failed World Cup footballers undergo public mauling

Footballers subjected to six-hour excoriation on stage for 'betraying' North Korea and Kim Jong-il's son and heir
Jong Tae-se
Jong Tae-se was spared a dressing down over the North Korea team's World Cup performance as he flew directly to Japan, the country of his birth. Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters Wolfgang Rattay/REUTERS

England's failed footballers should count themselves lucky that their ignominious World Cup exit was met with little more than a public mauling by the media.



Early this month the players were summoned to an auditorium at the working people's culture palace in Pyongyang, forced onstage and subjected to a six-hour barrage of criticism for their poor performances in South Africa, according to the US-based Radio Free Asia.




The coach was reportedly accused of betraying the leader's son, Kim Jong-un, who is expected to take over from his ailing father as leader of the world's only communist dynasty.


North Korea watchers said the regime had been hoping to attribute the team's success to Kim Jong-un as it attempts to build support among military and workers' party elites for a transfer of power.

After the Red Mosquitoes, who reached the World Cup quarterfinals in England in 1966, narrowly lost their opening match to Brazil, the regime decided to televise the second group game against Portugal in what is believed to be the country's first live sports broadcast.

But the few North Koreans with access to a TV had to watch the team suffer a 7-0 thrashing, a defeat some reports attributed to orders by Kim Jong-il to play a more attacking style.

The reported episode highlights the potential perils of representing a dictatorship at professional sport.

But according to South Korean media, the players got off lightly.

A South Korean intelligence source told the Chosun Ilbo that in the past, North Korean athletes and coaches who let the nation down were sent to prison camps.

"Considering the high hopes North Koreans had for the World Cup, the regime could have done worse things to the team than just reprimand them for their ideological shortcomings," the source told the newspaper.