It was a rare opportunity and novelty to watch North Korea play in 2010. Though a million miles away from the quality of every other team in the World Cup, it was a joy to watch their pluck and determination. But watching them play made me think of more important matters and it made my heart heavy. Is it right that FIFA should give credence and succour to vile, vicious totalitarian regimes like North Korea by allowing them to play in the World Cup? FIFA has an honourable track record – they were the first global sporting association to kick apartheid South Africa’s football team out of international sport. What else do they need to know about North Korea’s murderous Orwellian regime that deliberately forces its people into misery and starvation? If you want to know just how the fabulously rich hedonists who run North Korea utterly, cynically and cruelly oppress their own people and condemn them to indescribable lives of suffering and horror, do please, please buy Barbara Demick’s important new book, `Nothing To Envy: Real Lives in North Korea’. It’s the tragic story of a nation utterly enslaved, its people more destroyed and damaged than even anything apartheid could do. FIFA, please – kick this country out of the worldwide football family. Sports boycotts hit apartheid South Africa where it hurt. Give this vile regime a similar message.

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