North Korea

 

 

 

Mun In-Guk (April 25)
vs. Portugal (0:7) | World Cup | 2010 in South Africa

I FINALLY GOT A NORTH KOREA FOOTBALL SHIRT!!!

Well, if you only ever read this blog, this must be shocking news for you. If you do actually know me, you might have heard somewhere that I actually have multiple North Korean shirts by now (I will upload them all one beautiful day).

Anyways, getting a North Korea shirt has been incredibly painful. Over the years, there was always a single North Korea shirt on Classic Football Shirts, which never was on offer for less than 150 GBP. I saved up to buy it three times over the last decade - and never got the shirt. Paypal simply froze my account each time, as "North Korea" appeared in the item description. This happened again and again. Classic Football Shirts did not really offer any alternative payment services for non-British customers most of the times, which means I was a bit stuck. I tried to contact the shop, but they insisted that this is an issue impossible to solve and that I will just not be able to buy the shirt (which is a funny customer service of a company I otherwise love).

Later, in 2018, I then went a step further and asked a North Korean national team player for help. I mean, I actually met one, in person, and asked him. That player was An Yok-Hak, one of two so-called "Zainichi Koreans" that played the World Cup 2010 in South Africa for North Korea. Like "People's Rooney" and later Cologne player Jong Tae-Se, An Yok Hak was born and raised in Japan. He is a third generation Korean in Japan. The first generation overwhelmingly came to Japan in the 1940s as forced workers during World War II, as the entire Korean peninsula was occupied by Japan. As Korea split later, the Koreans in Japan are not descendents of anyone that has lived in either country or system. As Japan does not grant them Japanese citizenship, even in the third generation, they are just getting the citizenship based on the birth place of the grandparents birth place. If your granddad was once born in North Korea, you are North Korean. This is the case for An Yok-Hak, who lived and played football in Japan and South Korea all of his life, but did play for North Korea internationally. Many moons later, in 2018, An Yok-Hak managed a team of "Zainichi Koreans", called "United Koreans of Japan", which played in CONIFA tournament. In particular, in the 2018 World Football Cup in London, which I co-organised. Long story short, I had my chance to ask a North Korean former national team player for a national team shirt. He promised to try and get one when he is in North Korea again - but it never happened, unfortunately.

Now, how did I get it then? Well, I asked someone to buy it for me on Classic Football Shirt and ship it on. That worked. But that would have been a boring story alone.