04/17/24
June 22, 2002
Are the next Korean Presidential elections and the FIFA refs favoritism of Korea linked?: Chung Mong-joon is the Korean Football Association president and co-chairman of the Korea World Cup Organizing Committee. He is also the FIFA vice president who has been agressively attacking the current FIFA president Blatter, the only Asian executive member to join the legal action against the FIFA chief. He wants to run for Korean Presidency in December. When asked about the December Korean presidential race: "The appearance of the Korean national soccer team in the World Cup finals will considerably affect the election." Mong-joon is also one of the three sons of the late founder of Korean powerhouse conglomerate Hyundai Group. Where will conspiracy theorists take this?
Me and a friend watched a tape of the match and looked for questionable ref calls and Spain had more go their way. Spain kept fouling Korea in a most "spirited" manner without getting punished for it. Seeing it again Spain look worse than they did first time. Besides Joaquim nobody was doing anything even remotely interesting on the attack. I thought that they had been the slightly better team but ultimately both teams were pretty even. And by the way, Belgium had a much worse call go against them, why is noone crying foul over that?
posted by Kattullus at 03:06 PM on June 22, 2002
At this point I say nuts to the conspiricists. My admiration grows for France, et al, with each new wave of spoilsport whining.
posted by ShinyKnows at 04:48 PM on June 22, 2002
I only watched the highlights, in my drunken stupor from Engand's exit. I saw two good goals disallowed.
posted by squealy at 04:52 PM on June 22, 2002
(oops.. conspir"a"cists) shinyknows 0 : 1 grum@work
posted by ShinyKnows at 05:28 PM on June 22, 2002
Still sore over Italy, Voyageman?
posted by etagloh at 08:22 PM on June 22, 2002
and Spain.
posted by Voyageman at 11:39 PM on June 22, 2002
"Five goals against the South Koreans, 150-1 outsiders at the start of the tournament, have now been disallowed...statisticians say that the chance of one team benefiting from five errors by officials in almost consecutive games is 'infinitesimal'."
posted by Voyageman at 11:41 PM on June 22, 2002
Cries of referee bias as South Korea march into semi-finals