Difference between revisions of "Peace Cup" - New World Encyclopedia

Revision as of 21:14, 30 March 2007

The Peace Cup is a football (soccer) tournament organized by the Sunmoon Peace Football Foundation [[1]], which was founded by Reverend Sun Myung Moon the leader of the Unification Church. The eight-team event involves major professional clubs from different continents, is held every two years in South Korea. The tournament capatlized on South Korea's stunning performance at the 2002 World Cup which was co-hosted by South Korea and Japan. The Peace Cup is designed to promote world peace and encourage professional teams to serve their community. All profits from the tournaments are used to sponsor the Play Soccer Make Peace program [[2]] program, which is organized by the World Association for Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO), which holds youth soccer events in over 35 countries in the developing world. In 2006 a women's tournament called the Peace Queen Cup was created, inviting 8 women's national teams from 5 continents.

Tournament Origins

The idea of the Peace Cup came form Rev. Moon's love for soccer and his desire to use sports to promote world peace. [[3]] Rev. Moon made his first official announcment concerning the tournament in Seoul, Korea on June 12, 2002 at the Art Center of the Little Angels School, in a speech titled "The Role of Sports in Creating World Peace". [[4]] "The Sun Moon Peace Cup will not only celebrate a healthy spirit of humanity," noted Rev. Moon at the time. "As our spiritual nature continues to develop, it will become a festival of internal and external reconciliation and harmony within the world community. It will be a place where people unite in one mind, as one family, and in one heart, to open the way toward God's ideal of creation, a world of peace, freedom and happiness." The Sunmoon Soccer Foundation already had sucess and experinece in sponsoring soccer teams in Korea, including the highly successful professional team Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma [[5]] and the Sun Moon Universisty team, as well as professional teams in Brazil - Cene [[6]] and Atletico Sorocaba [[7]]. Seongnam is the most successful team in the history of the K-League, South Korea's professional soccer league with a record seven titles. Brazilian star Pele was consultanted in the initial planning of the first Peace Cup and spent time with the founder of the event in Irvington, New York in 2002. However, there was disappointment that Pele could not intice Brazilian team Sao Paulo to attend the inaugural event. Pele did attend the final game of the 2003 Peace Cup but later disassociated himself from the tournament.

Format

The Peace Cup is accredited with football's international governing body FIFA, and South Korea's Football Association. After two successful events, it is now one of the most prestigious and sought after soccer events teams for European clubs in the off-season. The competition is played between eight clubs, divided in two groups of four teams each. In the first stage, within their groups the teams play against each other once, and the winner of each group qualifies for the final, which is played in one single match. The groups are determined by a draw two months prior to the event. Each team is allowed six substitutions including the goalkeeper from a roster of 23 players.

Prize money

The prize money of the tournament, in both the 2003 and 2005 editions, is US$2,000,000 for the champion team and US$500,000 to the runner-up. Besides the champion trophy, three awards are presented: the Fair Play award to the team finishing first in the fair play contest; the Golden Shoe to the top goal scorer; and the Golden Ball, to the tournament's most valuable player voted by the media. Following the championship game. the At the 2005 final a check for US$1,000,000 was presented by Rev. Moon to World Association for Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO) to promote the Play Soccer Make Peace program. According to tournament officials, the 2005 event cost US$17,000,000 to stage.

Emblem

The emblem of the Peace Cup takes a motif composed of the sun, the moon, and a human being. Together they form a human being exhilarated by football all over the world. The red as the sun expresses the passion of a human being. The yellow as the moon wishes the game would be played as a pure football festival of mankind, while the green repsents a human being with arms stretched represents peace the peace of mankind. It employs a strong will to unite people around the world into one and create a peaceful world through football.

Venues

The venues for the 2003 event which ran from July 15-July 22, were all used in the 2002 World Cup:

Busan Asiad
Daejeon Purple Arena
Jeonju World Cup Stadium
Seoul World Cup Stadium
Suwon Bigbird Stadium
Ulsan Big Crown Stadium

Tournaments

The 2003 event drew 339,651 fans for the 12 opening round games, including 51,578 to the opening game at the Seoul World Cup Stadium between Seongnam and Turkish club Besiktas.

Participating teams

2003 edition

Originally AS Roma (Italy), Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) and São Paulo FC (Brazil) were scheduled to participate, but later withdrew.

Group A

Besiktas of Turkey
Ilhwa Chunma of South Korea
Kaizer Chiefs of South Africa
Olympique Lyonnais of France

Group B

1860 München of Germany
Nacional of Uruguay
Los Angeles Galaxy of the United States
PSV Eindhoven of the Netherlands

2005 edition