By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter

German football legend Franz Beckenbauer said Monday he believed FIFA had acted harshly in ordering North Korea to play their next home match behind closed doors and on neutral ground.

``Maybe FIFA is overacting,’’ Beckenbauer, who is chairman of the 2006 World Cup organizing committee, told reporters in Seoul, where he was attending a ceremony to mark a sponsorship deal between the Asian Football Confederation and Emirates Airline at the Millennium Hilton Hotel.

``The decision is made at the FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, so maybe they didn’t know what exactly happened in North Korea,’’ he said. ``I don’t know if they reacted badly or maybe they’ll overturn the decision. But in my private opinion, North Korea should have another chance.’’

Last Friday, FIFA’s disciplinary committee ordered North Korea to play their next World Cup qualifying game against Japan on June 8 at a neutral venue and behind closed doors after crowd trouble followed their 2-0 defeat by Iran on March 30 in Pyongyang.

Plastic bottles and stadium seats were thrown onto the pitch and the Iranian players had to wait in their locker room after the game, waiting for riot police to clear a crowd that had gathered outside before boarding the team bus.

Beckenbauer, who won the World Cup as a player in 1974 and as coach in 1990 with West Germany, was sympathetic but diplomatic. South Korean Chung Mong-joon, a vice-president of FIFA, was more aggressive on the issue and said he will do what he can to help North Korea.

``They just didn’t have any experience of hosting such a major international sport event, and they didn’t know the international standard,’’ he said. ``So such a minor mistake, which became a major problem, happened even though they had prepared for the game for a long time.’’

``You should understand that the decision was from FIFA’s disciplinary committee. It is their job to give punishments, not rewards.

``The North Korean football association is preparing to file an appeal, and we are giving assistance to them to find relevant precendents.’’

Beckenbauer also said Germany is ``definitely prepared’’ for the 2006 World Cup, although he expressed worries about maintaining the quality of the event, with many European players playing too many games with their clubs.

``It’s just like three years ago,’’ he told The Korea Times. ``Many players of European teams were exhausted, like when you saw Figo. How many games had he played in the year before the World Cup?

``But FIFA cannot force domestic leagues to reduce their games. So it is a little difficult situation.’’

indizio@koreatimes.co.kr