North Korean leader Kim Jong-il lavished luxury cars and apartments on female footballers who won the recent under-20 world championship, according to the country’s media.
North Korea’s state-run news agency KCNA reported on Tuesday that Kim had rewarded the players for their crushing 5-0 win over China in the tournament final in Moscow earlier this month.
”Kim Jong-il bestowed high honour upon [the] young women footballers and presented them with such gifts which they would hand down through generations as deluxe cars and buses and flats,” KCNA said.
North Korea’s media gave much of the credit to Kim himself for instilling a sense of ”courage” into the players while KCNA described the triumph as an ”ideological” victory.
The players demonstrated their ”transparent spirit of devotedly defending the leader [Kim],” trumpeted KCNA, as well as the ”spirit of defending the country and the spirit of waging dynamic ideological and fighting spirit battles.”
The practice of rewarding successful athletes with lavish gifts is common in North Korea despite widespread hunger across the impoverished communist state. – Reuters