Sepp Blatter, the head of soccer's world governing body FIFA, invariably refers to the world's soccer community as "the football family." Unfortunately, it's a terribly dysfunctional family.

Two incidents have highlighted just how far soccer officials will go to make mountains out of molehills and enemies out of family members.

The first concerns the pathetic bickering between South Korea and Japan -- or should that be Japan and South Korea?

The official title of the next World Cup is supposed to read 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea-Japan. This was negotiated several years ago and represents the official trademark for the World Cup.

It was also, believe it or not, a "massive coup" for the Koreans, the coup being that their name was designated to be listed first.

Japan readily agreed to this, but claims to have negotiated the right to refer to the tournament as the "2002 FIFA World Cup Japan-Korea" when written in Japanese characters.

Japan Football Association vice president Junji Ogura told The Japan Times last week:

"We came to an agreement that we put Korea first in the English official title but left the wording order free for use in the local languages. . . . Since then, we have been using this style (Japan-Korea) in Japanese. . . .

"We do have a memo about this agreement from the FIFA planning group meeting in November 1996.

"Should we show that to KOWOC and FIFA? I don't think so."

Er, HELLO?!? You have a memo confirming an agreement to use the designation "Japan-Korea" when put in Japanese? A memo that would obviously solve this argument definitively -- and you won't show it to anybody?

Am I missing something here? Is this some new form of logic that doesn't connect with English brainwaves? Is it like those Japanese skis that are no good in foreign countries because the snow is different?

Or is it one of those cunning plans that only very, very clever people can understand? If it is, there are no very, very clever people working at The Japan Times, because we've studied this cunning plan and we don't understand it at all.

In fact, most of the people I have talked to don't even understand the problem.

Now here's something the Japanese and the Koreans don't understand: Nobody gives a toss whose name is first.

Quite simply, only they do. And it seems clear to me that the only reason the Japanese really care about this issue is because the Koreans fought hard to have their name first.

And why did the Koreans battle so hard to have their country listed first? (No, sit down, little Johnnie -- it's not because they are a bunch of childish, garlic-chomping w***ers.)

It is, according to a VERY reliable source on Korean affairs (my wife): pride (OK Johnnie, you were right, but you have to learn how to phrase your answers better).

Pride, eh? Pathetic isn't it. "Put my name first or I'll scream and tell mom." Japan and South Korea -- two 5-year-olds in a sandpit. What's next? An international crisis between the two countries over the size of their willies? Or perhaps Korea will put its clocks forward so that it is ahead of Japan.

Grow up, boys.

The bickering between the two countries is even more shameful in a week when a South Korean student died while selflessly trying to save the life of a Japanese man at Shin Okubo station in Tokyo.

How pitiful is the trivial name-calling of the two organizing committees when weighed against the life of a young man who was doing the very opposite, trying to bridge the culture gap between South Korea and Japan.

Perhaps in his memory, the two sides should bury the hatchet and realize once again just what they have, rather than what they don't have. Lee Su Hyon's honor is shamefully tarnished by JAWOC and KOWOC.

If it has been agreed that Japan can put its name first and someone other than the Japanese is willing to admit to that or the Japanese can provide proof of that, then that is what is going to happen.

If not, then the title of the World Cup is going to be "2002 FIFA World Cup Korea-Japan." Unless, of course, the Koreans do something very, very atypical and lose their pride.

Because it REALLY, REALLY DOESN'T MATTER to any of the other 200-odd countries in FIFA.

Last summer, I attended the first FIFA-sanctioned cohosted soccer tournament, the European Championship. It went great and it was a wonderful tournament. It would be good if Japan and South Korea just followed what the two cohosts (Belgium and the Netherlands) over there did, which was . . .

Errrrrrr . . . . . . well, actually I don't know what they did. Either it never registered, or they never told us, or it was totally irrelevant. After all, everyone knew where it was being held.

Yes, Johnnie, that's right -- what I'm trying to say is: Who gives a toss?

A family at war

The second example of football's feuding family involves FIFA itself as it tries to find a solution to the European Commission's objections to the player transfer system in Europe.

The EC maintains that the system of charging a fee for players under contract to move is illegal under European Union law as it restricts the freedom of movement of football's "workers."

UEFA, Europe's governing body for soccer, is faced with an odd situation in that it covers territories both within and outside the European Union. So, laws that apply to the European Union countries do not always apply to the other countries within the European soccer federation.

The European Union insists that players in the countries over which it has jurisdiction are subject to EU laws. And they say that all workers -- soccer players included -- are guaranteed freedom of movement within the EU.

Under soccer's rules of employment, a player is bound to a club for the entire length of his contract. (Before the EU's "Bosman" ruling, the player was bound to the club even after a contract was up.) Players can make a request to leave while under contract but can only move at the club's discretion.

The EU says this is an unacceptable restriction and both players and clubs should be allowed to terminate a contract with an agreed period of notice.

The clubs say this isn't fair as the players gain value through the clubs and the clubs should be rewarded for the contribution they have made to increasing the player's value. (It should also be pointed out that players lose value while at some clubs (i.e. Middlesbrough, Aston Villa) so the equation is somewhat balanced.)

The player himself will gain through increased wages and a signing bonus. If the transfer fee is scrapped, then the player reaps massive rewards, and salaries are likely to rocket skyward toward the level of Major League Baseball players.

Time for some negotiations then.

The issue is almost entirely a European one, although it is possible that the result will bring knock-on effects to the rest of world soccer.

So, imagine UEFA's surprise when FIFA announced unilaterally that it had come up with a solution for the problem and was about to reach an agreement with the EU.

UEFA, led by Blatter's archenemy Lennart Johansson, went ballistic, accusing FIFA of undermining its authority and ignoring its own special needs and solutions.

A final solution has yet to be worked out, but UEFA threatened to negotiate directly with the EU, which would have put it in direct conflict with FIFA. Such a conflict could have been pretty far-reaching and could have split the soccer world.

As English Football Association vice president David Dein put it: "It's more than FIFA dare to ignore those who put them in power. FIFA have put something forward without the consent of their most powerful confederation, which is unacceptable."

Strong stuff, but, of course, entirely avoidable. The heart of the problem lies with the fact that Blatter despises Johansson and blames him for UEFA's manipulation of the Executive Committee vote last year that handed the 2006 World Cup to Germany. Now it seems Blatter and FIFA are willing to put their own selfish interests ahead of those of the game they are supposed to run.

Fortunately, Blatter was force to make an embarrassing climbdown and a compromise is now in the works.

"We made an error," he said at a news conference last week, adding, somewhat bizarrely: "But we did it for the good of the game."

However, he couldn't sign off without throwing some mud at UEFA: "They started a fight against FIFA -- all we wanted was peace in the football family."

If peace is what he really wanted, then why did he go head-to-head with UEFA? That is not the way to run an organization, even less a family; it is not the way to cooperate with a subdivision of that organization; and it is not the way to solve a problem that could fundamentally change world soccer.