hankyoreh

Japanese spectators began to shout “Dae-hanminguk.” One audience member was somehow able to get a hold of the loudspeaker and said, “These referees are bad. The South Korean team is superior in terms of skill, but they are losing the game because of the referees.”

In the South Korea-Kuwait preliminary men’s handball match for the 2008 Beijing Olympics held in Japan on Sept. 1, two Jordanian referees blew their whistles from the beginning. They declared several of Korea’s scores invalid and let Kuwaiti players attack until they could score. At one point, when a Kuwaiti player caused a Korean player to collapse, the referees handed a two-minute suspension to the Korean player. The Korean team could have beaten the Kuwaiti team by more than five goals, but the Korean players could only make the first score after 10 minutes of the first half of the game.

The game was suspended briefly after the audience threw water bottles into the court. A Russian supervisor dispatched by the International Handball Federation warned the referees. However, the situation did not change and Kuwait defeated Korea 28-20. More than losing the match, however, the Korean team has also lost its chance at winning a ticket to the Olympics.

Coach Kim Tae-hun said, “The poor players. As the leader of the team, I feel sorry for them.”

Sports Hochi, a Japanese sports newspaper, reported on Sept. 2, “The referees overrode Korea, the strongest team in Asia. The Middle East’s next target is Japan.”

The Asian Handball Federation is allegedly under the influence of a Kuwaiti prince, who is now the president of the International Handball Federation. He has dominated Asian handball for 25 years with so-called “oil dollars.” His influence became more conspicuous after he supported Egypt’s Hassan Mustafa in his bid for the IHF presidency in 2000.

The biggest victim is South Korea. Korea’s national men’s handball team, which attempted to win the championship for six consecutive years in the Doha Asian Games, lost the game due to referees partial to the other team. The women’s team was also unable to win a ticket to the 2004 and 2008 Olympics because of the biased decisions of the referees.

At Saturday’s match, German referees were supposed to preside over the match, but they were suddenly replaced by Jordanian referees. Meanwhile, the IHF continues to turn a blind eye to the situation.

The incident is expected to become a diplomatic matter for Korea and Kuwait. About 100 members of the Korea Handball Federation plan to visit the Kuwaiti Embassy in Seoul on Sept. 3 to hold a protest. Though the KHF has consistently tried to make conciliatory gestures toward Kuwait, as Korea feels itself to be a frequent victim of biased refereeing, many are strongly urging the nation to take action. Goh Byeong-hun, a KHF official, said, “Our patience has its limits. It is time for us to do something to remove Kuwait’s influence over handball.”