10 - 16 January 2002
Issue No.568
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 10 - 16 January 2002 Issue No.568 |
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Safe soccer
Security concerns are high on the World Cup agenda
It is five months and counting to the World Cup finals and Japan and South Korea are determined that their multi-million dollar investment will not let them down.
However, despite the confident noises coming out of Seoul and Tokyo, it is the question of security which is dominating hearts and minds.
South Korea is still marking the 50th anniversary of the 1950-53 Korean War against the communist North and is acutely aware of the need for security after the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington.
A list of more than 1,000 terrorist suspects has been distributed to airports and ports for them to be detained, alongside a list of known European hooligans.
Seoul has planned special forces to patrol stadiums and potential risk targets near them and will order no- fly zones over the stadiums for the matches. The country's riot police have started special training and are collecting anti-hooligan intelligence from European colleagues.
Co-hosts Japan is also putting security on top of the agenda. Last month, the country's parliament passed a bill to tighten up immigration laws to bar all overseas hooligans from the World Cup finals.
Under the revised legislation, all those sentenced to jail terms of less than a year for rioting or violent protests would now be barred entry. Currently, only those who have spent more than a year in jail can be refused entry to Japan.
"It is important to keep them at bay. It is an effective law," said Yasuhiko Endoh, general secretary of the Japanese World Cup Organising Committee (JAWOC).
The 11 September terror attack has also prodded JAWOC to boost security spending by one quarter to 2.77 billion yen ($22 million), hiring more private guardsmen and improving surveillance equipment.
Despite the need for tight cross-border checks, however, South Korea and Japan agreed on 21 December to waive visas for visitors from each other's country during the finals.
The Japanese government has estimated that 365,000 foreign fans will visit Japan. Of those, 69,000 will move between the two countries. If players and officials are included, the total will be 430,000 with 129,000 moving between the two countries, according to the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
It also estimated that 770,000 people will move by air and 1.5 million people by rail during the 32 World Cup matches to be played at 10 venues in Japan.
Clouding the build-up, however, is the spectre of the historical animosity between the co-hosts. South Korean soccer supremo Chung Mong-Joon said last month he wished Japan's Emperor Akihito and South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung attend the opening ceremony and the final together.
No Japanese emperor has visited the Korean Peninsula since it was divided under superpower trusteeships at the end of World War II following Japan's brutal colonial rule for 35 years.
A senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said it would be difficult to have a "smooth visit" to South Korea by the emperor, citing potential repercussions from South Korea's opposition parties and the public and differences in interpretations of their histories.
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