A World of Oddities Coming to World Cup

Four weeks from today, defending champion France and first-time World Cup participant Senegal will step onto the field at the largest soccer-only stadium in Asia and 64,677 fans at the Sangam World Cup Stadium in Seoul, South Korea, will ask:

“Where are all the gnomes?”

If that seems absurd, it is, but it’s no more bizarre than a whole host of peculiar happenings occurring in the run-up to Korea/Japan ‘02, the first World Cup to be held in Asia.

Here’s a quick look at just some of these odd doings, beginning with the lawn ornaments:

Gnome Game

In the French village of Hemin, residents awoke last week to find the local soccer field decorated with 202 garden gnomes of all shapes, sizes and colors.

Police investigating the matter found a note that read: “France’s team for 2002, chosen by the NFNLJ--202 good guys.”

The NFNLJ, as most gardeners in Europe know, is the Garden Gnome Liberation Front, whose purpose is to relocate the figurines from private gardens to forests, which the organization says is their natural habitat.

French citizens who could tell one gnome from another spent the rest of the day reclaiming their property.

Aussie Bovines

Because Japan will not allow European beef to be imported, for fear of mad-cow disease, the chefs who will prepare meals for Italy’s World Cup team have turned to Australia.

Doctors from the Italian soccer federation--no doubt after extensive testing at expensive restaurants--determined that Aussie beef was closest in taste and texture to Italian and thus will import steaks from Australia, to go along with the crates of pasta, parmesan cheese and olive oil they’re bringing from Italy.

Thai One On

The Italians made no mention of wine, but over in soccer-mad Thailand, where games at the May 31-June 30 tournament will be televised in prime time, sales of TV sets and beer are expected to soar.

The inventive Thais are also using the World Cup in a sort of carrot-and-stick experiment to keep prison inmates on their best behavior.

Soccer fans who find themselves behind bars--as opposed to in them--during the tournament will be allowed to watch games only if they conform to prison rules.

Thailand’s overcrowded jails, combined with the June heat, make for unbearable conditions, and allowing well-behaved inmates to watch the World Cup is a way of decreasing stress, officials believe.

There is no truth to the rumor that those who behave badly will be allowed to watch only the U.S. team.

Just Say No

Reacting to what they see as “prejudice” by foreigners, South Korea’s dog-meat restaurants intend to bite back by offering free samples outside the Seoul World Cup Stadium.

“We plan to develop canned dog-meat juice, which football fans can enjoy in their stadium seats,” restaurateur Choi Han-Gwon told Agence France-Presse.

“They will enjoy it instead of Coke.”

Don’t bet on it.

The Korean tradition of dining on dogs has raised the hackles of animal rights activists, among them former actress Brigitte Bardot, who wants the French team to boycott the World Cup.

Don’t bet on that either.

Kangaroo Update

Players who speak out against the practice of raising dogs for human consumption had best check their feet first.

A British animal-welfare group recently suggested that England’s captain, David Beckham, teammate Michael Owen and other players throw away their boots because they are made from kangaroo skin.

Vegetarians’ International Voice for Animals (VIVA) said the kangaroos are cruelly slaughtered, but a spokesman for the German sportswear company that makes the boots said the kangaroos were killed humanely.

Paper Pushers

Fans will not be allowed to bring all sorts of things into the 20 World Cup stadiums in Japan and South Korea.

The verboten list includes such obvious items as alcohol, firearms, fireworks, bottles, stones, poison, drugs, swords, knives, helmets and anything frozen.

It also includes two less easily understood items: umbrellas and confetti.

Considering that June is the third-wettest month of the year in the region, the ban on umbrellas seems unreasonable.

“Normal umbrellas will be confiscated,” one organizer said. “Unless fans want to get wet, they should bring nylon raincoats or small folding umbrellas so as not to obstruct people.”

As for confetti, it was considered a clean-up problem. Which leads to this question: How are those same crews going to deal with the two million paper cranes--birds, not hoists--that will be dropped onto the International Stadium in Yokohama during the closing ceremony?

Temple Training

If all that Australian beef doesn’t help Italy, perhaps Buddhism will, even if Coach Giovanni Trapattoni decides not to include Italy’s most famous Buddhist, Roberto Baggio, on his team.

The Italians have been given an exclusive invitation to the Koshoji Buddhist temple in Sendai, site of their training camp north of Tokyo.

“The temple will remain closed to all other nations participating in the World Cup,” said a spokesman for the Italian-Japanese Friendship Assn. in Sendai.

So there.

Cheery News

South Korea’s Ministry of Administration and Home Affairs has established squads of cheerleaders, each squad featuring 500-1,000 volunteers, whose duty it will be to support each of the World Cup teams.

It will be interesting to see just how enthusiastic the squad assigned to the U.S. is when the Americans play in Daegu on June 10.

Their opponent that day is South Korea.

Art Nouveau

South Korea has a long tradition of creating ceramic works of art and the World Cup has prompted one Seoul artist, Cho Kyung-Soo, to turn out sets of porcelain soccer balls in varying sizes.

There’s not much practical value in such objects, of course. Then again, perhaps it would give those gnomes something to play with in France.