Feuding Koreas to meet on the football pitch at edgy East Asian Championship

The East Asian Championship featuring Japan, China and the two Koreas comes at a time of serious tensions in the region, but there is unlikely to be much in the way of soccer diplomacy when the tournament kicks off on Saturday in Tokyo.

Amid a backdrop of North Korea performing a series of missile tests in recent months and South Korea and the United States undertaking military exercises, Korea observers are not expecting this tournament to produce the kind of statement seen at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

“We are past the age of breakthroughs in sport such as the two Korean teams marching together at the opening ceremony at the Olympics,” Aidan Foster-Carter, honorary senior research fellow in Sociology and Modern Korea at Leeds University, said.

There had been concerns about whether or not North Korea would participate because it doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Japan. But the squad, which won a qualifying tournament for a spot at the four-team tournament, arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday after collecting special visas at the Japanese embassy in Beijing.

“It is encouraging that it is going ahead at all but the overall crisis is severe and is not getting better,” Foster-Carter added. “All you can hope is that it brings a little bit of normality into the situation but I wouldn’t expect anything to change because of these games.”

On the field, while the North Korean soccer hierarchy may see the biennial tournament as a chance for some vital international experience and prestige, the Japanese and South Korean squads have different priorities.