FIFA will announce the hosts for both the 2018 and 2022
World Cups on Dec. 2. South Korea is mainly competing with Australia, Qatar,
Japan and the United States for the 2022 tournament.
“I can say that with all my determination, Korea is a good
bidding association and the bidding company for the World Cup 2022,” Blatter
said at a joint news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. “Even
a very good one. Not only good one - very good.” The Korean peninsula remains
in a state of war, divided by a heavily fortified border, because the Koreas'
three-year conflicted ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953.
Millions of Koreans still have family on the other side of
the border, with virtually no way to contact them.
Football is a popular sport on both sides of the
Demilitarized Zone. Both Koreas qualified for this year's World Cup in South
Africa. North Korea's women are ranked No. 6 in the world, and the South Korean
women recently won the under-17 World Cup.
Lee said he and Blatter discussed how the World Cup could
help foster peace on the Korean peninsula.
Blatter said football has the power to “make a step forward”
in helping to unite people in the world's last divided country.
“I will be very, very happy to use the power of the World
Cup and the power of football to help solve this solution,” he said.
The chairman of South Korea's World Cup bidding committee,
Han Sung-joo, has said he envisions fielding three or four games in North Korea
if South Korea wins the bid.
“It would be a good opportunity to bring North Korea into
the mainstream,” he told The Associated Press earlier this year. “Right now,
North Korea is fairly isolated, and there's still hatred between North and
South Korea. This will contribute to both peace and the integration of Koreans both
in North and South Korea.” South Korea, which co-hosted the 2002 World Cup with
Japan, became the first Asian country to reach the semifinals of the tournament
that year. During this year's World Cup in South Africa, South Korea advanced
to the round of 16 for the first time on foreign soil.
North Korea's men's national team participated in the World
Cup in South Africa for the first time since 1966.
The teams, which last faced each other in Seoul in a World
Cup qualifier in 2009, met again Monday at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China.
North Korea won 1-0.
