By Evan Ramstad
- Reuters
- Park Jong-woo with the sign that changed his off-the-pitch life.
Park Jong-woo, the South Korean soccer player who stirred up a fuss by holding up Dokdo-related sign after the team beat Japan for a bronze medal at the London Games, has gotten a bit of recognition from the International Olympic Committee.
But he still doesn’t have a medal.
Following South Korea’s 2-0 victory, Park walked around with a sign handed to him by a fan that said in Korean, “Dokdo Is Our Territory.”
Dokdo is the Korean name for the Liancourt Rocks, a small collection of islets between the Korean peninsula and Japan. Both South Korea and Japan claim jurisdiction over the islets, known as Takeshima in Japan.
South Korea has controlled them with a police presence since 1954, though they are too small to be inhabited by more than a small contingent of police and some fishing families that live there part-time.
On Aug. 10, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak visited the islets, becoming the first Korean head of state to do so. That triggered a diplomatic kerfuffle with Japan that still hasn’t quieted. The game between South Korea and Japan was played later that day London time, and some South Korean fans had taken signs to the game about Dokdo — perhaps in hopes of getting on South Korean TV coverage of Mr. Lee’s visit.
Park’s decision to parade around with one such sign was seen by some as injecting politics into the Olympics, a violation of the Olympic Charter. He was prevented from participating with his team in the men’s football medal ceremony, an event that marked the first time South Korea won a medal in football.
On Wednesday, the Korea Football Association announced that Park was included with other team members in receiving a bronze medal certificate that was issued by the IOC.
But the Korea Olympic Committee said that whether or not Park will receive a medal is still up in the air. The committee told local media that the IOC is still waiting for FIFA, which governs international soccer, to look into the circumstances around Park’s action and decide whether or not he should receive a medal.
Even those normally belligerent North Koreans had the decency to stop making political statements in the Olympics, so if IOC is really serious about uphold the Olympic Charter, it should revoke the medals from all the members of the S. Korean team because they did NOTHING to stop this guy from this act, which means that they were all in agrえement with this stupid ploy.
Give the guy his medal. His crime is that he held up a 3 foot sign that proclaims his nation’s sovereignty over land that no other country has any valid historical or legal documents proving their ownership. In the scheme of things, it’s like a US athlete holding up a sign saying “Florida is the USA” when, say, the Japanese prefecture of Shimane comes out of the blue and proclaims Florida Japanese.
Putting this in perspective, I think that a certain group of murderers from the Munich Olympics were punished with their being permitted their own Olympic team, even while they have not so much as declared their independence! So for those who say “keep politics out of the Olympics” you are a b-sh-tter, full of malarky.
This will allow all countries with disputes to perform and appeal their political message anywhere and any time.
An Iranian athlete may say Israel should disappear because it did not exist 100 years ago an a very popular game event or something.
A Tibetan monk may light him up in a FIFA soccer field.
India, Pakistan may claim Kashmir in a very popular sports game.
There seems to be no justice in FIFA and IOC.