North Korea exit World Cup - gone, but not forgotten?
Updated on 25 June 2010
North Korea has been knocked out of the World Cup today following their 3-0 defeat to Ivory Coast. Inigo Gilmore looks at the team that has been shrouded in mystery.
There's an intriguing appeal to a team unknown before the World Cup, with only a handful of their players playing outside their country.
Among them their star striker, Jong Tae-Se, known as "The People's Rooney".
The team has stirred much intrigue and when four players were left off a squad list last week, rumours spread that they had tried to defect, something FIFA strenuously denies…
Even if they had they money, it is hard for North Koreans to travel outside their country, with the paranoid regime fearing defection or ideological infection.
'Playing for the honour'
Jin Lee, who defected from North Korea four years ago, told Channel 4 News that football is one of the most popular sports inside North Korea, along with baseball and volley ball.
"There are football clubs in most towns, cities and major institutions such as the military and schools," he said.
"Each province and the national institutions, such as the military, has its official football team that competes for the national championship once a year. The military have three teams that compete.
"They don't sell the tickets, but the government allocates tickets to each institution so people can ask for one."
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It seems the tiny number of fans who turned up to watch the misery of their 7-0 drubbing by Portugal were apparently not even North Koreans but in fact Chinese fans for rent.
Dubbed the "Fans Volunteer Army" and thought to include Chinese celebrities - these fans travelled to the World Cup finals after the North Korean sports ministry allowed its ticket allocation to be sold in China. But clearly that humiliating defeat was not in the propaganda programme.
Channel 4 News' Inigo Gilmore wanted to get up close and personal with the players, even just once - but with no success.
He found the team hotel, near a highway between Johannesburg and Pretoria. There was not a fan in sight, and it was decidedly off limits.
The North Korean team has been closeted in this hotel, with a shroud of mystery hanging over them.
The South Africa security officers assigned to the team told him, off camera of course, that only two North Korean journalists were allowed near the players and that other media were not welcome here.
For outsiders there is no way in or out, rather Like North Korea itself.
They may have won over a few neutrals or at least stirred interest in their country's football but the North Korean team will leave South Africa much as it came here - surrounded by intrigue and almost unknown to the world.
