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Daegu residents' fervor for the World Cup is reaching fever pitch with the local government giving away 30,000 red tee shirts for spectators of Korea's second Group D match against the US in a plan to turn the stadium red. The tee shirts are to be distributed at every shuttle bus departure point to the stadium on the day, including Daegu airport. Yeungnam University students have also waged a wearing red shirt campaign by selling self-designed "Yeungnam Red Devils" tee shirts on the school website.
The Korean National Railroad will run four extra trains from Seoul to Daegu on match day.
The local government has been overwhelmed by phone calls inquiring about leftover tickets for the soccer match and traffic routes to the stadium. The ticket price is also soaring with under the table deals on the market. Before the opening of the first Group D match of the 2002 World Cup between Korea and Poland, first class tickets priced at W192,000 were traded for around W500,000, but the same ticket for the match in Daegu as of Friday has surpassed W1.7million.
However, sellers are rare and some companies are paying whatever it costs. Daegu's World Cup Task Force, in preparation for residents from other regions who failed to get a ticket, will place an outdoor video screen at Duryu Baseball Park and has placed other large screens (8m x 5.8m) at the National Park adjacent to the stadium for more people to watch the match.
Each university in Daegu, including Kyungbuk National University, have installed multi-vision sets or projection TVs on campus for students. Some universities, which were supposed to undertake final term examinations on June 10, are postponing them, overwhelmed by the flood of students' requests.
(Choi Yeong-gi, cyk@chosun.com )
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