North Korea and Iraq face sanctions over no-shows
Reuters - Monday 10 January 2011, 13:12
DOHA - Holders Iraq and secretive North
Korea could face sanctions from the AFC for failing to send a
player to their media conferences on Monday ahead of their
opening Asian Cup matches.
"The teams are obliged to bring one player to every
pre-match conference. We will pass on this matter to the AFC
disciplinary committee for them to decide," an Asian Football
Confederation (AFC) official told Reuters.
North Korea will play United Arab Emirates in the Group D
opener at the Qatar Sports Club before the other
match in the pool between Iraq and Iran at the Al Rayyan Stadium
later on Tuesday.
North Korean coach Jo Tong-sop was late for their scheduled media briefing, which the team's spokesman and translator
said was his fault, and was re-arranged with around 35
journalists in attendance.
A question put to Jo in English about the difficulties of
coaching a side in a heavily restricted country were not
translated by the team spokesman, who told people to come to
North Korea and find out for themselves.
North Korea were one of Asia's four representatives at last
year's World Cup but after a spirited display in losing narrowly
2-1 to five-times champions Brazil, they were humbled 7-0 by
Portugal and 3-0 to Ivory Coast.
Jo replaced Kim Jong-hun after the tournament in South
Africa and said the team had learned from only their second
World Cup finals appearance and were aiming to reach the
quarter-finals in Qatar.
Should they reach the last eight the North could possibly
face South Korea but Jo refused to talk about a match between
the two countries, who remain technically at war and have
exchanged artillery fire since the sinking of a South navy ship
last year.