North Korea’s Government Provides Context To Inclusion In “Group of Death”

↵The Group of Death is a moniker given out before every World Cup to let fans know which group should be the toughest from which to advance. This year’s group of death includes Portugal, Brazil, Ivory Coast and North Korea. The last country in the group will be clearly outclassed on the pitch – so much so that the Wall Street Journal reports that North Korean matches will not be shown “because of fears by its authoritarian government that the team will perform poorly or the prospect that protesters who dislike the North will be given screen time.”↵

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↵↵That quote came in a story about illegal transmission of the matches in North Korea, the type of illegal action that’s beyond commonplace in that country. In fact, the tyrannical rule of Kim Jong-Il and the atrocities by the North Korean government provide a whole new perspective to their inclusion in a group with such a name. In other words, it’s rather fitting that North Korea is included in the Group of Death, but for very different reasons.↵

↵↵The New York Times had a story last week in which they interviewed eight North Koreans who recently left their country after the government decided to devalue its currency to the point where $1000 in savings became worth less than $20. Each story tells a different side of the North Korean tyranny.↵

↵↵⇥The United Nations World Food Program says one in three North Korean children under the age of 5 are malnourished. More than one in four people need food aid, the agency says, but only about one in 17 will get it this year, partly because donors are reluctant to send aid to a country that has insisted on developing nuclear weapons.↵⇥↵⇥[A teacher who spoke with the paper] taught primary school for 30 years in Chongjin, North Korea’s third-largest city, with roughly 500,000 people. At least 15 of her 50 students dropped out or left after an hour, too hungry to study.↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥“It is very hard to teach a starving child,” she said. “Even sitting at a desk is difficult for them.”↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥Teachers were hungry, too. Her monthly salary scarcely bought two pounds of rice, she said. A university graduate, she pulled her own child out of the third grade in 1998, instead sending her to a neighbor to learn to sew.↵⇥

↵↵The woman eventually quit to sell noodles, moving to illegal trade of state-controlled commodities before, as the report states, she fell into debt after a guard at a checkpoint confiscated all her provisions.↵

↵↵The question, then, is how stories like this fit into a sporting event. The players on the North Korean squad aren’t part of neither the tyranny, nor the illegal broadcasting of other World Cup matches. To that end, the players for the Greek national side are not involved in that country’s the economic collapse, and those on the U.S. team had nothing to do with the nightmarish situation in the Gulf. Yet with politics often bleeding into the World Cup, is there a place to cover political situations within the context of this sporting event? ↵

↵↵I asked that question to ESPN’s John Skipper, who explained that the network will cover anything that pertains to the match at hand, or stories that have a real connection to the World Cup.↵

↵↵⇥“Outside of South Africa and Africa, for the most part if it’s not germane to the game, we probably don’t consider it our domain. Clearly there might be some reference made. When North Korea plays, I suspect there’ll be some reference to the special circumstance those players find themselves in but I would suggest that’s probably germane to the game. We have the charge that we do want to expose South African culture. We feel that the host of the tournament is in a different situation and we want people to understand the situation here. We will celebrate, investigate, examine, expose…”↵↵↵ESPN is doing a great deal of human interest stories on the history of South Africa, much of which is slated to air on Wednesday as part of the country’s Youth Day celebration. From ESPN PR:↵

↵↵⇥The Voices of South Africa “Soweto” feature is a moving portrait of the Soweto uprising, and the spirit of the people who populate the township today. The memories of that terrible and significant day still linger, but the people have moved on, embracing their new freedoms, and the possibilities a post-apartheid South Africa offers them. “Soweto” is a signature piece in the “Voices of South Africa” series, created exclusively for ESPN’s coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, from South Africa.↵↵While much of ESPN’s South African coverage has and will focus on Apartheid, there are other stories the network may cover, not the least of which would be the Blikkiesdorp outside Cape Town. As we noted in April, many South Africans were moved out of their residences to make room for the tourists, relegated to tin shacks within a few miles of some of the stadiums. ESPN’s Sal Masakela tweeted photos (one of which is inset) of impoverished South Africans living within the shadows of different stadiums, explaining that two schools were destroyed to build one of the soccer structures.↵

↵↵While Skipper noted that ESPN will likely not discuss political stories that don’t pertain to the matches, one of ESPN’s play-by-play men, Ian Darke, has made reference on more than one occasion to the conditions in certain countries, noting the poverty rate of Paraguay several times during the match against Italy and most recently commenting on the civil unrest – and contrasting unity to their football team – in the Ivory Coast.↵

↵↵There is no right answer of how to cover this World Cup, be it strictly from a sports standpoint or spending time on non-sport elements of each culture. It all does seem a bit interwoven, though, and does help provide a bit more perspective on the world stage.↵

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