Football Stars Come Home to Join Peace Cup

Peace Cup Korea 2003 is set to kick off on July 15. The tournament will be joined by eight football clubs from five continents across the world at the time of the first anniversary of the World Cup games last year.

The eight football teams are Sungnam Ilhwa, Besiktas (Turkey), Kaizer Chiefs (South Africa), Olympique Lyon (France - Group A), PSV Eindhoven (The Netherlands), LA Galaxy (U.S.), Nacional (Uruguay) and 1860 Munich (Germany - Group B).

Heroes of last year`s World Cup, coach Guss Hiddink and players like Lee Young-pyo and Park Ji-sung (PSV) and Hong Myung-bo (LA Galaxy) will also play in the tournament.

Big-name Football Clubs

Six of eight clubs - Sungnam, PSV, Lyon, LA Galaxy, Nacional and Besiktas - are national league champions.

Sungnam, often called `Real Madrid in Korea` and having won five league titles, is believed to be the strongest Korean football team. Lyon, which is well known for its fanciful style, has won French championship titles for two years in a row.

The Kaizer Chiefs is one of the best African clubs having won nine national league titles. Besiktas, in their centenary year this year, grabbed their 10th title this season after losing only one game.

PSV, which has won the national championship 17 times and the Super Cup 6 times, was a European champion with three titles - Nation`s League, Dutch FA Cup and European Champion`s Cup - back in 1988.

LA Galaxy, a California-based club founded in 1994, became the league champion last year, and Nacional won not only the national league title 29 times, but also the Toyota Cup twice and South American Championship three times. 1860 Munich is a two-time German League champion.

Stakes Are High

$10 million is set as the cash prize. The champion will get $2 million, twice as large as the money set for the Japanese Toyota Cup, where South American and European clubs compete head to head.

The organizing committee plans to host the footballing event every other year, aiming to foster the tournament as one of the big-name off-season events. “We are set to boost the scale and prestige of the tournament to the level equal to the World Cup,” said Park Gyu-nam, president of the committee.

Tournament Schedule

The eight teams will compete in two groups at six venues across the country through July 20. There will be no semi-final, and the final will be held at Sangam World Cup Stadium in Seoul at 7:00 p.m. on July 22.

Tickets may be booked over the Internet (www.wpkc.com, www.ticketpark.com ) or by phone (1544-1599) before the matches. Tickets are sold for 20,000 and 30,000 won (40,000 and 50,000 won for the final).

Sang-Ho Kim hyangsan@donga.com