Question: How many total global viewers will watch the World Cup's 64-match scheduled games?
(You can find the answer at the end of the article.)
When the Zurich-based Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) announced that South Korea and Japan would jointly host the 2002 FIFA World Cup from May 31st to June 30th 2002, fans, media and advertisers were fairly shocked. After all, never before had two countries joined forces and pooled resources to put on the largest show on earth.
When the 2002 World Cup comes and goes, that last statement will still be true. After all, South Korea and Japan have not exactly joined forces in their planning, nor have they pooled resources in their deployment. If anything, the two have practically competed with one another in a game of one-upmanship that could make or break the future of the Asian countries.
Whether driven by commercial or political reasons, FIFA's chief, the authoritarian octogenarian João Havelange, intended to present this as an opportunity for the fierce rivals to get closer to one another and share the spoils of such a grandiose spectacle.
While the gesture was more or less well-intended, one would almost think that "they probably thought Japan and South Korea shared the same language," joked Hiromi Sanguu of the Niigata World Cup Promotion Bureau. But language is not the only thorny issue; Japan brutally occupied South Korea from 1910 to 1945. Moreover, Japan is weak thanks to its third recession in a decade. Overall, the climate could be better, but if the joy of soccer cannot fix these countries' ills, what can?
Realistically, having two countries co-host is not a bad idea in itself. After all, only countries like the US, France and other economic powers have the wherewithal to pull off such a feat by themselves. Most countries cannot pull off or afford such logistics alone.
So what's the problem and hey, what's the answer to the trivia question?
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