North Korean footballers repeatedly punch players as weird clip forces FIFA plea
North Korea and Japan met for an U17 World Cup match in Qatar this week, with the two sides skipping the usual handshakes during their pre-match greetings in incredibly strange scenes
The Japanese FA have asked FIFA to intervene after North Korean footballers launched punches at their opponents rather than shaking hands. The two teams met in the last sixteen of the U17 World Cup in Qatar on Tuesday.
However, a number of North Korea talents skipped the usual pleasantries of handshakes as the sides lined up, instead choosing to punch the hands of their opponents. Footage of the incident has gone viral, showing Japanese players initially starting to walk past their opponents with their hand raised in the air to exchange high-fives and handshakes.
But as they made their way further down the line, the scenes started to turn ugly, with a number of players meeting them with forceful punches.
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While the involved players were not sanctioned by match officials over their headed conduct, the Japanese FA has sent a plea to FIFA to investigate.
A spokesperson told Chunichi: “We would like to ask FIFA for a decision,” after Japan won the match the enter the quarter-finals of the tournament. Jelani McGhee broke the deadlock for Japan in the fourth minute of the match, before Ri Hyok Gwang squared matters in the second-half.
Japan showed calmness and composure from the penalty spot to win a shootout 5-4 at the Aspire Zone, and progress to the final eight of the U17 World Cup. However, they were eliminated from the tournament in Friday’s round of matches, suffering a 1-0 loss at the hands of Austria.
Austria now take on Italy on Monday as a result, while Portugal and Brazil have a mirroring match to decide the tournament final, which takes place at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha come Thursday, November 27.
It comes as the senior North Korean national team failed to qualify for next summer’s World Cup in North America. The nation finished rock bottom of Group A in the third round of qualification with just three points to show for their efforts, while Iran and Uzbekistan stamped their tickets to the competition with respective first and second-place finishes.
The last time the nation appeared at the tournament was at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, finishing bottom of the Group G standings after suffering a 2-1 loss to Brazil, a 3-0 defeat to the Ivory Coast, and a 7-0 thrashing from Portugal.
The only other time the nation has qualified for the tournament came in 1966, when they were knocked out in the quarter finals by Portugal. England ultimately won that year’s tournament to clinch their first and only World Cup title, thanks to a 4-2 win over West Germany after extra time at Wembley.
It comes as Thomas Tuchel will hope to guide the Three Lions to glory at next year’s tournament in North America. England booked their place in the competition as a result of winning each of their qualifiers against Albania, Latvia, Andorra and Serbia.
They also didn’t concede a single goal during their endeavours. Speaking after qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, Tuchel said: “It will be very, very tough for me to not have a match until March. They have been outstanding.
“The level of detail cannot always be right. But the commitment to accept mistakes, the commitment after ball losses…to put the head down, to just run; run it off. This has been outstanding through the last camps and I think you can feel it..
“This is what I talked about and I hope that somehow we make it so that you watch this team and you feel like, ‘Wow. They really mean it.’ It is a privilege to work with these players because I love their character and their attitude and how they are shaped so this I knew and today I could say everything played out perfectly because from the first camp, I could feel the energy.
“Then we had a little dip in summer but then the way we reacted and built from there in the three camps was just outstanding so it is a privilege every day so full credit to the players for their commitment and it makes me of course very happy and very proud.”
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