{"id":63,"date":"2002-06-01T19:41:00","date_gmt":"2002-06-01T18:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/blog\/?p=63"},"modified":"2012-12-13T13:03:41","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T13:03:41","slug":"the-ball-reaches-its-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/blog\/2002\/06\/01\/the-ball-reaches-its-goal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ball reaches its goal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width:320px;height:240px\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/korea\/seoul\/opening\/open_arrival.jpg\" alt=\"Arrival at the Stadium\" \/><br \/>\nThe Ball arrives at the stadium<\/p>\n<p>The trans-continental odyssey reached its first point of closure with the Ball&#8217;s arrival at the World Cup stadium in Seoul. We had high hopes of getting inside as the opening ceremony started, since we had heard that there were still tickets for sale at the box office&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"sofvm_embed alignnone\"><div class=\"sofvm_video\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Opening Ceremony\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HasY6sc7oOU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p>The Ball makes its final journey &#8211; to the Opening Ceremony, the place it has travelled 8000 miles to reach.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sofvm_video_post_link\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/videos\/the-opening-ceremony\/#respond\">Comment on this video<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width:320px;height:240px\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/korea\/seoul\/opening\/open_stadium_entrance.jpg\" alt=\"The goal is in sight\" \/><br \/>\nThe goal is in sight, but no score yet&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, the only tickets available at the official outlet were priced at W640,000 (we&#8217;ll leave you to figure out how much that is in your local currency, but rest assured that it is as much as it sounds) and since the touts were strangely unwilling to reduce the price of their tickets &#8211; even once the game had started &#8211; the Ball hasn&#8217;t yet crossed the goal-line.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width:320px;height:240px\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/korea\/seoul\/radio_5_live\/r5_chris_gotch.jpg\" alt=\"Chris Gotch, our embassy ally\" \/><br \/>\nChris Gotch, our ally at the British Embassy<\/p>\n<p>However, we&#8217;re still optimistic that it can perhaps bounce in off the crossbar. Chris Gotch, our ally at the British Embassy, is trying to organise a meeting between us and the stadium authorities to see what can be done. We&#8217;ve also been speaking to a few folk at FIFA, and are hopeful that the Ball can be given a meaningful future.<\/p>\n<p>More on this as things develop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width:320px;height:240px\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/korea\/seoul\/opening\/open_arrival.jpg\" alt=\"Arrival at the Stadium\" \/><br \/>\nThe Ball arrives at the stadium<\/p>\n<p>The trans-continental odyssey reached its first point of closure with the Ball&#8217;s arrival at the World Cup stadium in Seoul. We had high hopes of getting inside as the opening ceremony started, since we had heard that there were still tickets for sale at the box office&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-korea"],"geo":{"latitude":37.56743999999999772398950881324708461761474609375,"longitude":126.9768906000000043832187657244503498077392578125,"description":null},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":734,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}