IOC, North Korea Are at Odds Over Soccer, Women’s Volleyball

Soccer is at the center of the latest debate in the attempt to break the deadlock on whether part of the 1988 Olympics will be staged in North Korea.

Meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, the International Olympic Committee Tuesday said it wanted to withdraw the preliminary-round soccer matches it had offered North Korea a year ago and instead let Pyongyang have all of another high-profile sport, women’s volleyball.

The North Koreans quickly announced that they wanted not just the women’s volleyball but the entire soccer tournament as well, a proposal that seemed at odds with the South Korean insistance that only “minor changes” could be made to the IOC’s original co-host plan.

Chin Chung Guk, the North Korean panel’s vice president, said, after the IOC had proposed the volleyball change and also offered to hold the entire men’s 100-kilometer cycling race in North Korea: “We still want more sports.” He said North Korea was aiming for “eight sports or events, a slight change from early calls for eight full sports.”