FIFA Investigates North Korean Team's Public Reprimand

There are stories on CNN and ESPN about FIFA opening an investigation into the accounts that the North Korea soccer team was reprimanded by basically everyone in the country when they returned home from the World Cup.

FIFA has clear rules stating that governments are allowed no intereference in the running of their nation's soccer teams. Obviously, the government can be influential in some ways with how they funnel money, but they can't step in and take over from the country's federation in any way.

If their is truth to the story that Kim Jong-il and the government publicly reprimanded the team, FIFA could theoretically punish the country in some way. Unfortunately, that might simply hurt the players. Most punishments include bans from future competitions.

Also, if they were only reprimanded, they can probably consider themselves quite fortunate. I'm sure my friends and I weren't the only people thinking that the team would go back to some form of hard labor. Of course, we don't know that that isn't the case, as well.

Let's hope FIFA can get in their, reprimand the leaders, and get these players the recognition they deserve for playing well enough to make it to the World Cup finals. That's a pretty big achievement, and all of North Korea -- even the craziest of them -- should be proud.