Present Day
Today, the Kim Il-sung stadium is used as the home ground for the North Korea national football team, the North Korea women's national football team and the Pyongyang City Sports Group.
In 2008, on two occasions, a 2010 World Cup qualifying match between the two countries, due to be played in Pyongyang, had to be moved to Shanghai when authorities in the North refused to allow the South Korean national anthem to be played in Kim Il-sung Stadium, or the flag of South Korea to be flown, as North and South Korea have never granted each other formal diplomatic recognition.
The start and finish of the annual Pyongyang Marathon occurs at Kim Il-sung Stadium.
Read more about this topic: Kim Il-sung Stadium
Famous quotes containing the words present and/or day:
“... the loss of belief in future states is politically, though certainly not spiritually, the most significant distinction between our present period and the centuries before. And this loss is definite. For no matter how religious our world may turn again, or how much authentic faith still exists in it, or how deeply our moral values may be rooted in our religious systems, the fear of hell is no longer among the motives which would prevent or stimulate the actions of a majority.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)