Yasuhiko Endo assumed the post of general secretary of the Japan World Cup Organizing Committee (JAWOC) two years ago, a position that requires all the patience and diplomatic skills he acquired during his years serving in the Ministry of Home Affairs.

He spends his days dealing with soccer's world governing body (FIFA), South Korea's World Cup Organizing Committee (KOWOC), a marketing firm on the verge of bankruptcy (ISL) and all the problems attached to organizing half of the world's biggest single-sport event.

In an exclusive interview with The Japan Times, Endo explained some of the problems he has faced, particularly in his dealings with Japan's cohost South Korea, of which he has intimate knowledge.

One of the biggest rows over the World Cup in the last year has been the dispute over the use of Japanese in describing the tournament here and the order of the names. One Japan Times headline stated: "FIFA insults Japan." Is that how you saw it?

That was exactly right because FIFA didn't understand Japanese culture. They were insulting Japan by getting us to use that terminology (katakana).

Really, they don't understand Oriental culture and I think FIFA should have tried to understand Asian culture -- or, at least, tried to understand Japan and Korea -- before they awarded the World Cup to Japan and Korea.

It is difficult for FIFA unless you live in Japan and speak Japanese -- especially in Japan because we have kanji. You need to be able to read kanji before you can appreciate the culture.

So unless you live here, and speak the language it's difficult to understand the culture.

To give you one small example, the first time you meet a Japanese person, the Japanese person will say: "How old are you, where do you work," and Westerners think that's very rude. Westerners say, "You shouldn't ask my age straight away; we've only just met."

But from the Japanese point of view, we've got respect language -- keigo -- and unless you know the age of the person you're speaking to and what kind of position he has in his work, you don't know what kind of keigo to use to him.

If he's older than you or more important than you, you have to change the language you use.

And it's the same in Korea. In fact, Korea is much more strict about this than Japan. In Korea, it's a question of absolute respect, whereas here it's more a case of mutual respect.

In Korea, you have to use respect language to your own parents.

It really is a part of the culture that's of vital importance here in the Orient; it has very strong roots.

It must be very difficult for Westerners to understand that, but I would at least like them to try and understand that there is this difference, even if they don't understand the full implications of this difference.

In The Japan Times, you ran the headline "FIFA insults Japan," and the reason that we were upset was that they originally said to us that we had to write "2002 FIFA World Cup Korea-Japan" in katakana. Anybody who has the slightest understanding of Japanese culture would never suggest that you write Korea-Japan in katakana.

FIFA asks us what's wrong with this, and we can try to explain it until we're blue in the face, but still they will not be able to understand it.

FIFA sees the 2002 World Cup as being one competition in two countries, but it often seems that FIFA, JAWOC and KOWOC are working against each other rather than with each other. Do you see it this way?

I think our three organizational setups are different. I don't think they're all working separately on different lines, but they're all working to sort out the issues they need to deal with. And they all have different issues that they need to work on, so the way they're working is often different.

And we have a division of responsibilities among these three. JAWOC's responsibility is to ensure that the World Cup is a success within Japan, while KOWOC works to ensure that their own responsibilities are fulfilled.

We don't have the same jobs; we have different tasks to carry out, but we all have to ensure that we are working on the same guiding principles as we carry out the projects we need to complete.

Our goal is to ensure the success of the 2002 World Cup and we all have that same goal, but we have three different organizations working toward that goal. The division of labor between the three is different. But that doesn't mean we work in isolation from each other; we have to communicate with each other.

The LOCs (local organizing committees) JAWOC and KOWOC have similar tasks and we have good communication at the working level and at the higher levels -- at general secretary level -- we have regular meetings between the two LOCs and we have a good exchange of information between each other.

We try to have meetings where we can see each other's faces; we'll sit down around a table and work things out together.

The three general secretaries (FIFA, JAWOC and KOWOC) also have regular meetings where we have frank exchanges of opinion and we all explain our own points of view and then we coordinate our roles together.

At the end of the day, all these cogs move together and the wheel moves.

I was appointed about two years ago and the first of these general secretary meetings was about July last year and they have been going very well.

So how did the flap over the name arise?

There are some very sensitive issues wrapped up in the naming of the World Cup and people have different opinions on the matter. I was only appointed in 1999 and this issue had already been decided by then. What I was told was that the very first chairman of KOWOC, Pak Se Juk, had no problem with the word order in the naming of the World Cup.

He spoke Japanese very well and understood Japanese culture and he knew that when Japanese people refer to the relationship between Japan and Korea the only word they use is Nikan -- or Nippon and Kankoku -- but when Korean people refer to the relationship between Korea and Japan, there is no equivalent.

What I heard was that at time of the cohosting decision, FIFA said the tournament was going to be called the 2002 World Cup Japan-Korea, not Korea-Japan.

A lot of people said that had Mr. Chung (Mong Joon, the head of the Korean Football Association), who was present at that meeting, accepted that, he wouldn't have been able to return to Korea.

We have had a very sad and tragic relationship between Korea and Japan and from the Koreans' point of view, the issue of the name of the 2002 World Cup is a very, very sensitive one. There is no way Chung would have been able to agree to such a thing because the Korean people would not have agreed to such a thing.

I think maybe Japanese people aren't as strict over this issue as the Koreans, but nevertheless if they'd been forced to write kannichi, it would have been unacceptable for them.

That's what the problem was all about -- a question of language. We have two separate languages and that creates a problem. There was a gentleman's agreement with Mr. Pak (to reverse the name in Japanese), who fully understood all the reasons behind it.

You speak Korean and Mr. Pak understood Japanese, but could either of you understand the language of FIFA?

I can't even speak English so the language of FIFA is beyond me.

But don't you think there's a huge gulf between the way the powers in Zurich think and the way the two LOCs look at things?

I think it's inevitable that they are going to be Eurocentric. But this will be the first World Cup on the Asian continent and even if there's just one or two people within FIFA who can get a better understanding of Korea and Japan then that can have a greater impact on the development of football as well.

There are even some staff in FIFA who are studying Japanese and for me that's such a positive step. I'm really happy about that.

Are you happy with the idea of cohosting?

When it was decided, I wasn't in JAWOC, but at that stage I thought it was a great idea because this is a massive, worldwide event and it presented a wonderful opportunity for Japan and Korea to collaborate for the first time on something of this scale and I think through collaboration the two countries will inevitable deepen their understanding of each other.

I think the people of Japan and Korea will, through cohosting, be able to see each other through different eyes and gain a different perspective on each other's countries.

Geographically, we are very close to each other, but perhaps in the past we haven't been very close emotionally or spiritually, and I always say if you can't get on with those close to you, how can you expect to get on with those far away. So this will be a great opportunity to get on with people who are close to us.

I understand you speak Korean and have a close relationship with South Korea. How did this come about?

I used to work for the Ministry of Home Affairs and we had very close relationships with our Korean counterpart, so our ministries held exchanges at quite a senior level and carried out study reports of each other's countries.

This started around 1991, I think when Mr. Choi In Ge came to Japan. Mr. Kobayashi, who was administrative vice minister for home affairs, went to Korea in 1992 and I was part of the delegation that went over to study about Korea.

It was the first time for me to experience Korean culture first-hand, and before I went I thought I should study the language, so I started to study Korean.

I've spent years sweating away at trying to learn English, but I started to learn Korean and I amazed myself how quickly I could pick it up. The grammatical structure is similar to Japanese and there are lot of Korean words that have their roots in Chinese characters and more than 95 percent of Korean words are based on kanji -- the pronunciation may be different, but we have similar words in Japanese. So if you learn how to read those kanji with Korean pronunciation, your vocabulary can expand at an incredible rate.

That just bowled me over; I was so pleased when I found that out.

What about the culture and history of Korea?

I bought a book about Korean history that was aimed at Korean schoolchildren, and I took it home and studied it. I was astounded to see nothing mentioned about the period 1910-1945.

Of course, this was the period when Korea was annexed by Japan so I can understand this, but Korea has such a long flourishing history that spans over 2,000 years.

It may be only 35 years, but the fact that Koreans feel like leaving it blank is very sad, but it made me understand, really, what kind of pride the Koreans have in their country and in their history. I would like more Japanese to understand that; it's something they really should do.

Do you feel the two countries are genuinely moving closer together?

In reality, the two countries are moving closer together. Before, relations between them were very cool, but those feelings are melting away now and they are becoming closer.

Exchanges between the two countries are flourishing; Japanese people are flocking to Korea and Koreans are coming to Japan. For example, until recently, people would only have gone as tourists to Korea, but because the World Cup is being cohosted, local authorities are exchanging ideas with their counterparts in Korea and they are setting up twin city relationships between the cohosting cities.

Civil servants are visiting each other and there's been a big increase in the number of flights from local airports in Japan to Korea. All this serves as evidence as to how much more the local people here are waking up to Korea.

I think this is the great plus of cohosting. If one of the two countries had been awarded the World Cup, then you wouldn't have got this level of exchange and mutual understanding.

Do you think it will change the attitude of the Japanese to Koreans in Japan who often suffer from discrimination?

Little by little, as young people begin to understand the way things are, there will be much less discrimination. I'm sure that's the path we are going down. I think that we were already on that path, but because of cohosting the rate at which we are traveling down it has accelerated.

For example, the number of Koreans keeping their Korean names after they naturalize is increasing and nowadays they are not afraid to use their Korean names when entering universities or companies.

So I think there is a growing acceptance of Koreans, especially the second- or third-generation Koreans and that's a very good sign, it's a big step forward.

Are you happy with the choice of venues? For example, we don't have Tokyo, but we do have Sendai; we don't have Hiroshima, but we do have Niigata.

I wasn't involved in the choice of venues, but I understand that Japan was preparing to be the sole host of the World Cup and had 15 venues lined up, but after the cohosting decision they had a very tough time cutting the number of venues down to 10.

I wasn't part of that so I can't really comment on the choice they made, but I would say that it gives local areas in Japan a chance to promote themselves on the world stage and that's important, I think. So it is a good opportunity for the development or redevelopment of these local areas.

Having said that, I'm sure there'll be some foreigners who'll think, "Woah, we're in the middle of nowhere," but it is an important opportunity for those areas to show something of themselves.

Do you think there is a sufficient level of awareness and excitement here? Is the marketing program on track?

I think people are starting to become excited about it. For example, ticket sales have been launched, we've started recruiting volunteers, and we've got the Confederations Cup coming up. So I think recently, the awareness level has increased greatly.

The marketing rights for the World Cup is different from the Olympics because we don't have any of the marketing rights. All the marketing rights are held by ISL, and ISL has sold the licensing rights to Dentsu in Japan. It was only once the licensing rights were sold last summer that they could start up the marketing program in Japan.

Will ISL's financial problems be a big burden?

Here in JAWOC we don't have any contractual relationship with ISL so there is no adverse reaction financially for JAWOC itself. FIFA President (Sepp) Blatter visited us recently and told us not to worry because FIFA would take care of that side of things.

Also recently, JAWOC said it was having to trim its budget by $20 million -- will that have a big impact on things?

It will have no major effect on the organization of the World Cup itself. For example, on temporary structures, instead of making fabulous temporary structures we'll just scale down the quality a little. But they'll be as effective as originally planned.

I've had staff look into how we can cut corners without having any major effect on the World Cup. In addition, the closer we get to the World Cup, we can get more accurate figures and estimates of expenditures, whereas a couple of years ago they would have been ballpark figures.

But we are still concerned about whether or not we will get the full income that we had anticipated. If JAWOC had had the licensing rights, then we could have gone out there and hawked the stuff ourselves.

So next time round JAWOC will grab the licensing rights?

I think the next time the World Cup is held in Japan, none of us will be alive.