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Jeju Island has the most passionate football fans in Korea, according to a comprehensive 10-month survey by the Korea Football Association from December 2007 to September 2008.
The number of registered football players in Korea was 207,262, accounting for 0.49 percent of 41.97 million people aged between 5 and 69. At 3.05 percent of its population, Jeju Island has the highest proportion of players nationwide -- 6.2 times higher than the national average and 22 times higher than South Jeolla Province (0.14 percent).
As increasing number of youngsters go abroad for football training, 704 youngsters used 19 major brokering agencies as of May 2008, for an average period of 21.5 months. Some 62 percent or 433 of them left for Brazil, and 28 percent to Australia.
A total of 169 football matches were broadcast last year, of which 61.5 percent or 104 matches were overseas while 61 were played domestically. The KFA will release the survey results on its homepage (www.kfa.or.kr).
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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