The Soccerphile World Cup 2002 Archives Click here to go to the current Soccerphile.com
R. Sanborn Brown 30 July 2002
Any list of winners that emerged from the recently completed World Cup would have to include the United States national team. Drawn into a grouping that included European powerhouse Portugal and co-host South Korea, few gave the Yanks any chance of progressing past the first round. In perhaps the greatest victory in US soccer history since 1950 - when a group of unknowns defeated England 1-0 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil - the US held on to win 3-2 over one of pre-tournament favorites Portugal. In the second game, Cliff Mathis scored early against co-host South Korea, and the US managed a tie in the lion's den of Daegu in front of 50,000 screaming, red-clad Korean fans. In spite of a poor showing against a relatively weak side from Poland, the US made it through to the second round on goal difference. A win over rival Mexico pushed the US through to a date with Germany in the best 8. The US lost to but clearly outplayed the eventual second-place finisher. German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn and a German handball in the penalty area that went unnoticed by the referee would ultimately end the US team's run. Claudio Reyna and Landon Donovan were standouts.
Also in the winner's column were the many bars in Japan that got away with setting up large screen televisions and charging admission to watch World Cup matches. In mid-July, FIFA's Japan representative officially gave up seeking damages from the countless bars and restaurants that showed the matches without authorization. FIFA's official stance is that this represents a violation of television broadcasting rights - and violators should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. However, there were simply 'too many violators, and [we] could never investigate them all.' Nevertheless, in many Japanese cities, fans had trouble finding bars open for business. Fans resorted to going to the electrical sections of department stores to watch broadcasts of the matches in Sapporo; and in Niigata and Saitama certain restaurants and shops were closed, perhaps fearful of hooliganism occurring in this already xenophobic country.
However, sporting goods manufacturers and retailers made a killing in June. National team key holders, shorts, and in particular blue jerseys priced at $120 saw tremendous sales. Wide-screen television makers and DVD manufacturers also enjoyed a mini-bubble in May and June.
Oita StadiumBoth host nations' professional football leagues have been enjoying something of a post-World Cup boom. Japan's J.League Division 1 had a record attendance
for the weekend of July 20-21 with an average gate of 25,958. Division
2 also broke the 10,000 average attendance mark for the first time since
the league's creation in 1999 with a figure of 13,161 fans per game.
Average attendance is up by over 5,000 spectators for J1 and 1000 for
J2. Club attendance records for the season were broken at Kyoto Purple
Sanga, where thousands of female fans in a 18,406 crowd turned up to ogle
World Cup heart-throbs Atsushi Yanagisawa and Koji Nakata and mob the
Antlers' team bus at the end of the game. Season high gates were also
seen at the Urawa Reds v Jubilo Iwata (52,902), Shimizu S-Pulse v Vegalta
Sendai (17,874) and Gamba Osaka v Nagoya Grampus 8 (21,621) matches. In
J2 35,809 fans turned out to see Albirex Niigata play Mito Hollyhock at
the 'Big Swan' World Cup stadium in Niigata and 22,314 spectators saw the Kyushu derby between Oita Trinita and Avispa Fukuoka at Oita's 'Big Eye' stadium.
The K.League has also been enjoying increased attendances since the end
of the World Cup. A record 42,280 people saw the Suwon Samsung v Busan
I.cons at Suwon World Cup Stadium, the largest gate since the K.League
kicked off in 1983 and the million fan total for the season has been passed
in only 69 games, beating the 1999 record of 72 games to bring up the
total.
Photograph copyright ©2002 Kjeld Duits
A final and somewhat surprising winner goes to the makers of hair color products - for men. In the past men's hair coloring was mainly the preserve of the middle-aged fighting a rearguard action against the onset of gray hair. Recently, though, younger men who dye their hair out of vanity have overtaken the geezers. Thanks to the World Cup - in which star players performed sporting dyed blond, red, and silver locks - the industry witnessed a massive surge in sales. Mandom, a leading manufacturer of men's cosmetic products, saw a 50% increase in sales in from April to June over the same period in the previous year. According to a Japan Soap and Detergent Association (JSDA) survey of company employees in their 20s, 49% of the women and 22% of the men dyed their hair in 1998. By 2001 that had jumped to 85% and 33%, respectively. The industry is reported to be considering building a giant blond, red, and silver shrine in the likeness of Messieurs Nakata, Inamoto, Toda et al.According to Dentsu Research, the World Cup had an 'economic effect of more than $25 billion' for the Japanese economy.
The Japanese police seem to be losers: they compiled a profile of visiting fans to help officers distinguish the different nationalities and their foreign habits. The report leaked to Soccerphile branded the English and Irish fans as 'virtually indistinguishable drunkards' and the South Americans as 'potential thieves and pickpockets.'
It turns out that the Japanese economy produced more than its share of World Cup losers as well as winners. According to the Japanese Cabinet's June 'Economy Watchers Survey' index, many people avoided going out during the month of June as a result of the World Cup. Compared to the previous month's report, the index dropped 3.3 points to 42.9. As reported in the Yomiuri Shinbun, many stayed at home glued to their television - and as a result consumption declined. On the same day the Bank of Japan released its June Consumer Price Index report, in which meat and fish production earmarked for restaurants decreased by 1.8% compared to the same period in the previous year. Travel agents and cell phone companies also fared badly.
Travel agent giant Japan Travel Bureau (JTB) suffered as Japanese travelers stayed home to watch the matches. Package tours in June were down 15% compared to the same period in the previous year.
Cell phone leader NTT Docomo had to face the wrath of its clients when its system all but crashed under the weight of overuse. When leftover tickets for Japan games went on sale at noon on June 7th, some 100 million calls poured in and paralyzed the system. In the aftermath, 9,000 complaints were registered, from those angry over the disruption in service to others who were unable to place stock orders.
Also listed in any losers column must be the average Japanese taxpayer who will be footing the bill for overreaction on the part of the national police. Helicopters, riot squads, private security, plainclothes platoons, divers, motorcycle teams, and hundreds (in some cases, literally thousands) of ordinary police working overtime duty for every single game: just what did a month of martial law cost? And all for hooliganism and thuggery that never materialized.
A final loser could be the 8 stadiums built for the World Cup many of which could end up as expensive white elephants. In particular, the citizens of Miyagi Prefecture are showing their wrath by calling for the demolition of Miyagi Stadium as its financial viability is questionable at best. The stadium is located in Rifucho, a small town with a population of only 30,000 people: far fewer than the stadium's capacity of 49,000. With annual maintenance costs of $2.4 million far in excess of expected revenue, it is poised to become a black hole into which prefectural taxes are sucked ad infinitum. Local club Vegalta Sendai is not considering leaving its city centre stadium and moving to the new ground.
Monochrome Images from the Far East
The Soccerphile World Cup 2002 Archives
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