The 2002 World Cup, jointly hosted by South Korea and Japan, was the first World Cup ever held in Asia. With this fact came extensive media attention from abroad and internal intrigue from domestic Korean and Japanese populations. The competition especially generated high interest in South Korea, with the national team exceeding expectations to reach the competition’s semi-finals. Crowds of thousands gathered in the city square of Seoul to cheer along the national team, illuminating the wave of “Red Devils” of loyal supporters. But beyond the actual results of the national team’s matches, the World Cup also impacted South Korea in non-athletic considerations. From introducing a new narrative of a more inclusive Korean nationalism to fostering strong economic growth, the 2002 World Cup established several outcomes that reshaped collective perceptions and experiences towards South Korean society.
The 2002 World Cup played a pivotal role in redefining the landscape of Korean national identity. The successful results in the national team’s matches undoubtedly played a central role in bolstering national pride and excitement. The Korean national team, which had previously never won a game in the history of its World Cup attendances, defeated footballing giants in Portugal, Italy, and Spain en route to a historic semi-final finish.[1] These successes were certainly pivotal in creating and sustaining the buoyant and feverish atmosphere in the streets of South Korea during the tournament. A “World Cup fever” emerged in the streets of Seoul and other large urban regions, with the Korean “Red Wave” of fans swelling in mass and intensity with each successive round of the tournament.[2] Approximately 22 million people were estimated to have attended the public watch parties in the streets of various cities to support the national team.[3] In the capital city of Seoul alone, 10.48 million supporters – 88 percent of the city’s population – assembled in the streets throughout the seven games that the national team played.[4] However, this fervent atmosphere that mobilized collective support for the national team did more than simply act as the “12th member” of the Korean national team. The World Cup presented a special occasion that mobilized Koreans from across the country to rally around a common interest that transcended locality, age, and class, introducing a new source of pride for the Korean populace that all members could participate in. The tournament loosened the traditionally restrictive and tight relational networks. For instance, the national team reconciled previously fractured generations of youth and adult populations, who found a rare foundation of solidarity to share in patriotic wavings of the Korean flag and cheering of the team in the city squares.[5] This celebratory celebration throughout the tournament introduced notions of collective self-love and national pride across the domestic Korean audience, sharply contrasting sentiments of post-colonial defeatist and cynical beliefs rooted in Korea’s era under Japanese occupation.[6] Although the external interest in Korea from foreign fans and audiences would undoubtedly have boosted South Koreans’ self-perceptions of their nation, the World Cup’s encouragement of celebration and festivities – along with the team’s mythologized successes – asserted a new lens of Korean national identity. By allowing the entire nation to collectively share in Korean identity in their support of a team that continually rewarded their optimism and hope, a progressive and inclusive understanding of Korean nationalism emerged, one that was more willing to overlook diversity and differences in favour of celebrating visible lines of shared identity as members of the “Korean Red Wave.”[7] The World Cup presented a traditionally reserved and Confucian Korean society with a unique opportunity to express itself visibly by cheering for the national time.[8] Societal habits of censorship and regulation were overlooked in celebrating the national team’s successes, as Korean supporters encountered a rare opportunity to pursue and develop tenets of individuality and celebration.[9]
Beyond its internal effects on building national solidarity domestically, the 2002 World Cup also presented South Korea with a flurry of economic benefits. Expectations were large even before the beginning of the event, with state-operated firms predicting the creation of 350,000 new jobs and industrial revenues of USD 8.82 billion, with particular booms in the construction sector.[10] The 17th rendition of the World Cup opened with a backdrop of past successful precedents, with the majority of past World Cups resulting in increases in growth rates in the host country.[11] For Korea, post-event economic trends mirrored those of its predecessors. Its gross domestic product (GDP) surged from 3.1 percent in 2001 to 6.3 percent in 2002, propelled by match attendance and foreign tourism that served as a new pool of consumers for local businesses and amenities, which boosted the name recognition of larger Korean conglomerates.[12] A state-sponsored public relations effort articulated a new image of an open and energized Korean state during the opening ceremony, an image which further grew prominent with the emergence of the “Red Wave” or the “Red Devils” crowds of fervent domestic supporters of the national team.[13] South Korea emerged as a more recognizable tourist destination for the global World Cup audience, many of whom had little knowledge or familiarity with the host nation.[14] During the World Cup, 57.8 percent of foreign tourist arrivals were World Cup-related, with USD 522 million being spent by this cohort during their stay in the nation.[15] The World Cup thus put South Korea on the map of countless individuals across the world, many of whom had never even known or heard of the nation before the World Cup.
It would be inaccurate to claim that the South Korean populace was unilaterally excited when the 2002 World Cup host countries were announced. There existed sizeable pockets of concern and cynicism surrounding the event, with many concerned with the potential costs of hosting a mega-sport international event.[16] It was uncertain whether attention would gather for a country that many football fans and general tourists were largely unfamiliar with. Despite these initial concerns, the hosting of the World Cup proved to be a pivotal event that brought both economic benefits and national revitalization to South Korea. The event was an opportunity for South Korea to introduce itself to football fans and the broader globe, as the populace displayed cohesion and unity not only in its event organization but also in its unified fervent support for the national team. Moreover, beyond the economic benefits to tourism and GDP, the event was a defining moment in articulating a new South Korean national identity. In its call for unity and solidarity from the Korean populace in supporting the national team, the World Cup challenged conventional norms of censorship and regulation, allowing much of the nation to pivot into a new nationalism that amplified elements of spontaneity and celebration into the collective Korean national identity.
Chan-Min Roh is a third-year undergraduate pursuing a major in Contemporary Asian Studies and a double minor in South Asian Studies and Asian Canadian Studies. His research interests include citizenship, development, and the history of pro-democracy movements. As a contributor to Synergy, he hopes to promote discourse on the socio-political challenges faced by East Asia in the twenty-first century.
Bibliography
Cho Han, Hae-joang. “Beyond the FIFA’s World Cup: an ethnography of the ‘local’ in South Korea around the 2002 World Cup.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 5, no. 1 (2004): 8-25.
John D. Horne and Wolfram Manzenreiter, “Accounting for Mega-Events: Forecast and Actual Impacts of the 2002 Football World Cup Finals on the Host Countries Japan/Korea,” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 39, no. 2 (2004): 187–203.
Kim, Hyun Jeong, Dogan Gursoy and Soo-Bum Lee. “The impact of the 2002 World Cup on South Korea: comparisons of pre- and post-games.” Tourism Management 27, no. 1 (2006): 86-96.
Kim, Samuel Seongseop and Alastair M. Morrison. “Change of images of South Korea among foreign tourists after the 2002 FIFA World Cup.” Tourism Management 26, no. 1 (2005): 233-247.
Kim, Samuel Seongseop and James F. Petrick. “Residents’ perceptions on impacts of the FIFA 2002 World Cup: the case of Seoul as a host city.” Tourism Management 26 no. 1 (2005): 233-247.
Lee, Choong-Ki and Tracy Taylor. “Critical reflections on the economic impact assessment of a mega-event: the case of 2002 FIFA World Cup.” Tourism Management 26, no. 1 (2005): 595-603.
[1] Hae-joang Cho Han, “Beyond the FIFA’s World Cup: an ethnography of the ‘local’ in South Korea around the 2002 World Cup,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 5, no. 1 (2004): 9.
[2] Cho Han, ““Beyond the FIFA’s World Cup,” 9.
[3] Samuel Seongseop Kim and James F. Petrick, “Residents’ perceptions on impacts of the FIFA 2002 World Cup: the case of Seoul as a host city,” Tourism Management 26 no. 1 (2005): 27.
[4] Kim and Petrick, “Residents’ perceptions on impacts of the FIFA 2002 World Cup: the case of Seoul as a host city,” 27.
[5] Hae-joang Cho Han, “Beyond the FIFA’s World Cup: an ethnography of the ‘local’ in South Korea around the 2002 World Cup,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 5, no. 1 (2004): 10.
[6] Cho Han, ““Beyond the FIFA’s World Cup,” 10.
[7] Hae-joang Cho Han, “Beyond the FIFA’s World Cup: an ethnography of the ‘local’ in South Korea around the 2002 World Cup,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 5, no. 1 (2004): 15.
[8] Cho Han, ““Beyond the FIFA’s World Cup,” 17.
[9] Cho Han, ““Beyond the FIFA’s World Cup,” 10.
[10] John D. Horne and Wolfram Manzenreiter, “Accounting for Mega-Events: Forecast and Actual Impacts of the 2002 Football World Cup Finals on the Host Countries Japan/Korea,” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 39, no. 2 (2004): 191.
[11] Horne and Manzenreiter, “Accounting for Mega-Events,” 192.
[12] Horne and Manzenreiter, “Accounting for Mega-Events,” 192.
[13] Samuel Seongseop Kim and Alastair M. Morrison, “Change of images of South Korea among foreign tourists after the 2002 FIFA World Cup,” Tourism Management 26, no. 1 (2005): 244.
[14] Kim and Morrison, “Change of images of South Korea among foreign tourists after the 2002 FIFA World Cup,” 244.
[15] Choong-Ki Lee and Tracy Taylor, “Critical reflections on the economic impact assessment of a mega-event:the case of 2002 FIFA World Cup,” Tourism Management 26, no. 1 (2005): 598.
[16] Hyun Jeong Kim, Dogan Gursoy and Soo-Bum Lee, “The impact of the 2002 World Cup on South Korea: comparisons of pre- and post-games,” Tourism Management 27, no. 1 (2006): 87.