At the final match between South Korea and Japan on 28 July, South Korean fans booed the start of the Japanese anthem and later upped the political sloganeering with a banner that covered most of the width of one end of the ground that read, in Korean, "The nation that forgets history has no future." (), apparently aiming at the Japanese leaders' reluctance to admit to wrongdoings during its militaristic and colonial past, after they displayed huge pictures of
Ahn Jung-geun, who assassinated the first
prime minister of Japan and then-Japanese
resident-general of Korea Itō Hirobumi back in 1909, and
Yi Sun-sin, a Korean naval commander who is famed for his victories against the Japanese navy during the
Imjin war in the
Joseon dynasty back in the 16th century. The banner was not removed until
Korea Football Association (KFA) directed supporters to do so after the first half of the match. After the banner was taken down, "Red Devils," a group of South Korean football supporters, refused to cheer on the national team in the second half. On its Facebook page, the Seoul sector of the Red Devils wrote that its members would not bang drums or chant songs for South Korea in protest of the decision by the KFA to remove the banner.
Kuniya Daini, President of
Japan Football Association, said "We ask the
East Asian Football Federation to thoroughly investigate the matter and act in the appropriate fashion," and Japanese
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the incident was "extremely regrettable" and the Japanese government "will respond appropriately based on FIFA rules when the facts are revealed.", while KFA said "We are still investigating the matter. We have no official statement now". Japanese Sports Minister
Hakubun Shimomura went further on Tuesday, saying the style of the banners called into question "the nature of the people" in South Korea. The South Korean
Ministry of Foreign Affairs then responded with a statement deploring Shimomura's "rude comments". ==References==