If only India and Pakistan played football, today was the day

Everyone has a stake in this: from the US, caught up in the fallout of last year’s tragedy, to Argentina, hoping its economy reaches a semblance of form its football team should produce; France, hoping its gloriously multicultural rainbow team banishes the spectre of racism cast by the recent presidential elections. Every African team will hope for some pay-off but rest secure in the knowledge that just making to WC 2002 is an incredible feat.

Even the host nations look to football for salvation. Japan, hoping the influx of tourists gives its economy the electric shock it so desperately needs. And South Korea, where the stock market has been shooting up over the past couple of days, is longing to be accepted in the global arena as a legitimate, freely functioning democracy.

Indeed, it could be that the two hosts have shown the way. There is a strange relationship between the two: Korea was brutally occupied by the Japanese Imperial forces till the end of World War II and the wounds are yet to heal. Japan looks at its neighbour across the Sea of Japan (the Koreans call it the East Sea, which should help explain the depth of feeling) rather as one would a particularly troublesome younger cousin one can’t wish away.

And yet, Korean teenagers model themselves on their Japanese counterparts, they read the ‘Manga’ comics so popular in Tokyo. Ever so often, though, the wounds are ripped open again by a stray insensitive comment.

So for these two countries to agree to co-host an event of this scale is nothing short of remarkable. At tomorrow’s opening ceremony in Seoul, Japan will be represented by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the Emperor’s cousin Takamado. There were plans for Akihito himself to attend but it was decided the time wasn’t yet right for that.

One can say that India and Pakistan have twice co-hosted cricket’s version of this tournament but there is one vital difference: they were the same till torn apart by a third country.

It’s not just the participating countries — and those watching from the sidelines, as large parts of India will — who are looking to the World Cup for some sort of salvation. The game itself is in urgent need of medication, after the civil war in its highest governing body. Re-elected FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who has the reputation of running the organisation like a mafia don, at least had the humility to say yesterday, after his win, that he had received football’s message loud and clear: public confidence must be won back.

On past record, the omens are good. The World Cup has never been a political tool the way the Olympics have (or even the Davis Cup, on occasion). In 1978, the tournament was staged in Argentina, then under the brutal military rule of Gen Jorge Videla. Nobody stayed away. Four years before that, at the height of the Cold War, Germanies East and West met on the World Cup battleground. There were threats of a SAM missile being set off by the Red Army but the only thing unusual about the match was the result: West Germany, the eventual winners, lost 1-0.

Back home, with ‘battleground’ having a very different connotation, there will be a fervent hope that the tournament provides some relief from the heat — in every form. Not just in Kolkata or Kerala, where life will probably come to a standstill, but in the chawls of Mumbai, in the bungalows of South Delhi, in poshest Pune, even in ravaged Gujarat. Football has a way of making people feel better. This is its biggest test.