KIM Jong-un is preparing to watch his beloved Manchester United take on Brighton in the FA Cup – along with a surprising number of his fellow citizens.
The tyrant revealed his fondness for the Red Devils to a visiting western politician and reportedly never misses a game or a major football tournament.
Wembley will packed with 90,000 Man Utd and Brighton fans for the FA Cup semi-final – but 5300 miles away Kim will likely be tuning in on a giant screen in one of his many palaces to watch the game.
Kim rules North Korea with a rod of iron with the lives of its 25 million citizens carefully controlled and its isolation as well as hostility to the outside world has earned it the nickname the “Hermit Kingdom”.
Smuggling in videos of foreign films and TV programmes can lead to execution while even letting kids watch them can result in parents being sent to hellhole prison camps.
But one of the foreign influences has managed to seep through the tiny cracks from the outside world into North Korea – is the Premier League.
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Experts told The Sun Online that incredibly the ruthless regime manages to get hold of Premier League games & other fixtures before actually broadcasting them on TV.
But the games are shown on an up to four week delay – so meaning whoever wins today, the North Koreans won’t find out until we are just days away from the FA Cup Final.
Martyn Williams, a researcher who monitors North Korean TV, explained that state-run broadcasts actually show sports everyday – many of them from the West, including the football from England.
And meanwhile, North Korea expert Jean Lee, from the Wilson Center think tank, said North Koreans have an affinity with English football due to the national team’s success in 1966.
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It is unclear how the North Koreans get hold of the tightly controlled broadcasts – but Kim’s regime is known for smuggling in any goods they can’t get their hands on due to sanctions.
So it’s likely dodgy broadcasts of sports are likely the same – with North Korean market vendors also understood to
Kim himself seems to be leading the way with his guilty pleasure, if the word of Italian politician Antonio Razzi is to be believed.
Razzi is a friend of the crackpot dictator and confirmed to The Sun that Kim told him during private conversations that he’s a huge fan of Man Utd.
The Italian Senator is a controversial and eccentric figure in Italian politics, who has become well-known in his homeland mainly due to his close friendship with Kim.
It certainly seems that there’s knowledge of football and the big teams are well known.
Martyn Williams
While the idea of Kim being a football fan might at first glance seem at odds with the way he runs the country, a deeper look into his background reveals it might
Ordinary North Koreans themselves may remain bottled in but for the country’s elite it’s a different story.
As the son of North Korea’s former leader Kim Jong-il, from whom he inherited the position, he was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland.
Whilst there he fell in love with western sports including football and basketball with the NBA’s Chicago Bulls vying with Man Utd for his affection.
He even struck up a bizarre friendship with basketball star Dennis Rodman, who has visited North Korea several times.
The chubby chain smoker may himself not be the finest athletic specimen but it seems his love of the beautiful game has opened the door for North Koreans to share his passion.
Not only are they seemingly mad about the Premier League but North Korea’s national side has a proud tradition, getting to the quarter final in 1966.
And occasionally their players do break through, with one being the North Korean “Ronaldo” Han Kwang-song.
He played for Juventus – and was even linked to big money moves to Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal and Everton – before being forced back home due to sanctions.
But reportedly being from an ordinary background in North Korea – he revealed how closed off the normal population is, with him allegedly admitted to a Liverpool scout he had never heard of Steven Gerrard.
Han may not have heard of Stevie G but for many North Koreans, Premier League players are as familiar to them as they are to us.
Mr Williams, who studies North Korean TV, said every citizen will have access to Premier League games and other football.
Williams explained that there’s one TV channel across North Korea.
It used to broadcast from 3-11pm but increased those hours from 9am to 11am, with a lot of that time filled showing football matches, he said.
“North Korea bans all outside media so people don’t have satellite dishes which means they’re restricted to what’s on state television,” said Williams, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center foreign affairs think tank.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic it has been showing one sporting event a day, usually the Premier League or one of the European leagues.
“It’s on a delay and it’s usually lightly edited and runs to about an hour or more so it’s not the entire game but it’s most of the game.”
On the day he talked to The Sun Online he said North Korean TV was showing highlights of Liverpool against Real Madrid from March 15.
As for the FA Cup semi-final “there’s certainly a chance that it will be on North Korean TV though we’re talking in three or four weeks”.
“What you have to remember is that because North Korea is so closed off, if you missed the match this weekend you’re going to hear about it, but people there won’t know the score, even if it’s a month late.
“There’s such a clampdown on information coming into the country, that information doesn’t really matter that much.”
He also said North Korea even has state approved football bloggers who interview fans.
“So it certainly seems that there’s knowledge of football and the big teams are well known.”
But while ordinary people face restrictions Williams said: “Kim Jong-un is a law unto himself and while certainly be able to watch the game if he wants to.”
North Korea expert Jean Lee, from the Wilson Center think tank, explained the deep links between North Korea and football in England.
“They are huge fans of Premier League teams and soccer is a hugely popular sport in the country,” she said.
“Those players from 1966 were huge stars and they made North Korea look so good by reaching the quarter finals.
“It introduced to North Koreans that they could be proud of their country through sport.”
Foreign football was first introduced to the country via recorded games being sold on DVD, she explained.
These could then be bought for a “small fee” and then watched at home.
“Do the regime decided it was ok for them to have a passion for international football.”
North Korea’s 1966 Glory & Downfall
IT was one of the biggest upsets in the history of football as isolated and war-damaged North Korea knocked European powerhouse Italy out of the 1966 World Cup.
“The fall of the Roman Empire had nothing on this,” reported one British newspaper as Kim’s XI edged a victory over the title contenders 1-0 in Middlesbrough.
It was one of the most incredible stories on the pitch, but it is claimed to have been followed by one of the most horrifying twists off the field in the history of the World Cup.
North Korea became the first Asian team in history to progress beyond the first round just 13 years after the end of the bloody and devastating Korean War.
And while their glorious victory should have been as celebrated as England winning the 1966 title in the final tie against Germany – it is claimed they did not return as heroes.
Instead the brutal regime are claimed to have savagely punished their players for bringing shame on the country after being knocked out in their next game 5-3 against Portugal.
It is claimed the the team had gone out drinking two nights before their match – which impacted their performance.
And these actions were deemed as “decadence” and not becoming of one representing the Dear Leader.
Members of the team are claimed to have returned to Pyongyang facing damnation – being sent to the gulags of Kim’s grandfather, then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung.
It is a claim which has been disputed over the years – dismissed by some as “Cold War propaganda”.
Surviving members of the team in North Korea have publicly denied they were banged up in the camps and claim they were still celebrated.
But respected North Korea defector and journalist Kang Chol-hwan claims first-hand in his book The Aquariums of Pyongyang that he met one of the players in the infamous gulag Yodok.
Kang claims all thoughts of their 1966 football glory had faded – and the entire team aside from Pak Doo-ik, who scored the winner against Italy, had been sent to concentration camps.
He says they were subject to decades of torture and starvation.
But their glory and downfall saw Middlesbrough really get behind the North Koreans.
The town took the little known team to their hearts with a connection that persists to this day – and even saw surviving members of team visit in 2002.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
