Asian football chief meets with DPRK official
According to Yonhap:
Asian football chief Mohamed Bin Hammam met with a North Korean official in Pyongyang on Monday, the second and last day of his two-day trip to the country, the North’s media said.
“Yang Hyong-sop, vice-president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK, met and had a talk with Mohamed Hammam Saad Al-Abdulla, chairman of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and his party at the Mansudae Assembly Hall on Monday,” said the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in a brief dispatch.
…
The AFC chief, also an executive member in FIFA, arrived in North Korea on Sunday to launch FIFA’s “Goal Project,” which helps underdeveloped countries build football fields and other sport facilities, according to the Web site of the AFC.
According to the AFC, Hammam planned wide-ranging talks with the president of North Korea’s football governing body and sports minister, before flying to China on Monday.
North Korea, which lost all three group matches in South Africa at its first World Cup in 44 years, was offered free World Cup footage in line with FIFA’s policy to promote football in poor countries.
In a separate report later on Monday, the KCNA also said that a new training camp with 60 beds has been built for the North’s national football team under the FIFA Goal Project.
The report said the camp, with a floor space of more than 2,100 square meters, has bedrooms, dining halls, bath rooms, a swimming pool and a video room, adding the opening ceremony took place on Monday with the attendance of Hammam and North Korean officials.
If anyone knows where this facility is, please let me know.
There are a couple of nicely rebuilt football fields here and here, but I do not know if they are part of this particular camp.
Read the full story below:
AFC chief meets with N. Korean official
Yonhap
7/19/2010
