[Editorial] Sports Is Sports

With the soccer match of Korea and USA coming up, the mutual relation seems to be about to be damaged. There are anti-American writings on the Internet, and even an anti-USA cheering team has been made. The Blue House has sent request to related parties to control their behaviors. The police are concerned about any extreme behavior. The situation seems quite serious.

We cannot blame the criticism toward the USA. The assertion that their domination one-sidedness, crimes committed by the US armies in Korea, misjudgment confusion during the winter Olympics have provided the causes seems persuasive. But expression against certain nation should be careful. World Cup is a game where athletes all over the world are gathered to compete fairly, and it must not be abused to criticize America. People at the Blue House are detaining the president from watching the match and the American ambassador is so concerned that he said, “I hope the American team would lose.” There’s something definitely wrong.

Some suggestions to make a threatening atmosphere before the match and to boast the power so that the American players might be threatened, are as good as forcing us to give up the fair play and the pride of the host country. It is important to get to the second round, but by threatening the opponent to win the game is not patriotism, but a mere chauvinism.

The match with the America team should be fair and square like other matches. Our audience shouldn’t do anything beyond the cheering. Our athletes wouldn’t want anything unusual, and most of the people would be the same.

We even need a tolerance to clap hands for the American team when they win the game. I hope the cheering groups on the streets would behave themselves, as we did for the last match. Sports is only sports.