South Korea can’t stop arguing about the military exemption

Son Heung-min Son of South Korea plays during the FIFA World Cup match against Mexico on June 18, 2026 in Zapopan, Mexico. | Carl Recine/Getty Images

Few subjects can provoke stronger reactions in South Korea than the issue of mandatory military service. So when two Korean reporters were caught on camera last week making demeaning comments about team captain Son Heung-min’s military service exemption, it touched a national nerve. “Is he running around like a platoon leader because he’s the captain?” they mocked, pointing out that he knew nothing about the military because of an exemption granted after winning a gold medal in the 2018 Asian Games.

Son is no ordinary athlete. He is a global soccer superstar, a source of pride for the country who’s seen as someone who helped raise the peninsula’s profile just as it was becoming a cultural juggernaut. (As evidence, Son has been a longtime model for Hana Bank — a job that is given only to those seen as trustworthy and well-respected).

And so the backlash was swift: The disparagement of the beloved athlete was widely criticized, and South Korea’s national team is now boycotting Korean media interviews. That news alone has made headlines in the country, since the national team has effectively cut off access to domestic reporters as they compete in the biggest sporting event on the planet, limiting their interactions to FIFA-required media appearances. It’s a reminder of how sensitive the military service issue remains, even when the underlying rules have long been settled.

At least 18 months of military service is required for every able-bodied man in South Korea. For many, the mandatory sacrifice inevitably creates frustration toward those who are exempted from it — elite athletes and entertainers, Koreans with foreign citizenship, disabled citizens, etc.

Nearly two decades ago, those exemptions exploded into the spotlight when the 2002 South Korean squad became the nation’s first and only World Cup team to receive military exemptions for its tournament performance, after its historic fourth-place finish. The backlash was overwhelming in subsequent years — Koreans saw the growing range of sports exemptions as unfair, and as a result, the government dropped World Cup-related exemptions in 2008. Despite the policy change, however, the bitterness surrounding military exemption still seemingly haunts the sport.

Today, athletes can still qualify for alternative service through achievements such as winning an Olympic medal or a gold medal at the Asian Games. It’s why Son’s military exemption, which replaces full active-duty service with three weeks of basic military training and alternative services, shouldn’t — in theory — be controversial.

But because nearly all able-bodied men are required to serve, questions surrounding who receives special treatment continue to generate intense public scrutiny. Even around the time Son received his exemption in 2018, an online survey showed that 74 percent of participating voters thought that military exemptions should be abolished for athletic and artistic achievements.

Welcome to POLITICO Forecast. For the next five weeks, Forecast will showcase daily coverage of the World Cup, with a global eye to the players looking to win off-field. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at [email protected]. Or contact tonight’s author at [email protected] or on X (formerly known as Twitter) @ck_525.

SOFT POWER PLAY: Norway’s fans have become famous around New York City for plopping down wherever they are and pretending to row like Vikings. For Norway, embracing the Viking culture is complicated, but at the moment it’s being celebrated during the nation’s first World Cup appearance in 28 years. The “Viking row” has happened on the subway, on escalators, in Times Square, in rain-drenched parking lots before matches and inside MetLife Stadium so vigorously the stadium swayed.

The tournament has also become the venue for more serious soft diplomacy. Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus’ first visit abroad without their parents was for the Senegal game followed by a stop at a football club in Brooklyn with Norwegian roots.

And at a party of Norwegian football fans before the country’s Monday win over Senegal, Ambassador Anniken Huitfeldt seemed like a celebrity. A former member of parliament and foreign minister, she was posted to America in 2024, just in time for the election of President Donald Trump.

When I met her in the crowd, another journalist from back home stopped to say hello. Some guys asked to be in a photo with her. After the interview was over and I was in the middle of a tailgate outside, a random Norwegian volunteered to help me understand some of the chants – and it turns out he said he knew her, too.

Huitfeldt spoke with POLITICO’s Ry Rivard in an interview conducted in English. Her remarks have been edited for length and clarity.

This seems like an amazing exercise of soft power. The Viking army — you see Norwegians in the subway, on the escalators. How are you using this for sports diplomacy?

I think it’s been very important to how we look upon ourselves. Because the Viking history has always been important for Norwegians, but we never brag about it in a way. And we haven’t focused that much about it.

But here, it has really made us proud. And I think a lot of people were a little bit embarrassed at the beginning. But when they saw how well it was received here in the U.S., we have really taken part in it. So now we are super happy. I mean, everybody’s joining.

How are you using it for your job, beyond just sort of introducing Norway to Americans and North Americans? Is it helping you do diplomacy?

We put a lot of effort in social media. We have given interviews before to POLITICO about our chef and diplomacy, and we’ve got so much attention. But the video where we are rowing, the staff at the embassy, has been spread to 3 million people. [It had more than 4 million views by Wednesday.]

Hard pivot to foreign policy: Are you looking for anything in particular out of the NATO meeting this week with the president? Is there something Norway would like to see?

I think it’s very important to focus on how European countries over the years have really stepped up. And now it’s a pretty good deal for the U.S., I think, the whole NATO package. Because we spend more on defense than the U.S. does when it comes to GDP, and at the same time we purchase very much of the weapons from the U.S. that we send to Ukraine.

And not to forget how we are taking care of American security up in the high north. I mean all those nuclear weapons on the Kola Peninsula — the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world — those weapons are not directed at Oslo, but at the United States. So we are also taking care of American homeland security up in the high north. So it’s a pretty good package for the American people, the cooperation that we have in NATO.

How has the Trump administration’s positioning towards the Arctic, towards Greenland, towards other things, changed your job, or what you expected your job to be?

Well, it has been challenging, especially when it comes to Greenland, where we have been very united with the other European countries. I think we have been very coordinated in how we talk about this, and for us it’s extremely important that we don’t change the geography and borders up in the high north.

Jared C. Tilton – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

This world leader visited his team’s dressing room to congratulate players on their victory.

THE COUNTRY THAT DOESN’T EXIST IS A WORLD CUP WINNER: Kurdistan is not a member of FIFA, resigned instead to the Confederation of Independent Football Associations, whose biennial CONIFA World Football Cup pits non-sovereign states, minorities, stateless peoples and regions against one another.

But the world’s approximately 40 million Kurds — often called one of the largest ethnic groups without their own nation-state — may be the big winners of Matchday 15, writes Sasha Issenberg.

The Italy-based site Asia News has reported there are nine players of Kurdish extraction at the World Cup, spread across four teams, including Iran, Iraq and Switzerland. But it is German forward Deniz Undav who has attracted the most attention, for both his on-field prowess and eagerness to assert his Kurdish identity at every turn.

The son of a Kurdish-Yazidi family that migrated to Germany to Turkey after the country’s 1980 coup d’état, Undav is tied with Lionel Messi for the most goal contributions in the tournament and will have the chance to add to three-goal, two-assist tally tomorrow against Ecuador. Undav has celebrated his goals, including a stoppage-time winner against Côte d’Ivoire, with a traditional Kurdish govend dance. (Our corporate cousins at Bild detailed the origins of Undav’s celebration with his club team, VfB Stuttgart.)

Even if Undav doesn’t come off the bench again for Germany, many Kurds will have something to celebrate: the surprise early elimination of Turkey,whose government they consider an enemy both inside its own borders and beyond. Kurdish social-media feeds have become cheering sections for whichever team is facing off against Turkey.

“What a great way to start the day—waking up and finding out that Turkey lost the match,” an account named @Kurdistan_C wrote on X early Saturday. “Congratulations to the people of Paraguay on their team’s win against Turkey.

It is unclear when Kurdistan’s actual team will take the pitch next. The Kurdistan Football Association was suspended by CONIFA after it failed to follow through on plans to host the World Football Cup in 2024. One has not been scheduled since.

“At the moment, Kurdistan FA are excluded from all international football inside CONIFA and have no opportunity to promote and celebrate the beauty and greatness of its people,” the organization announced in September 2024.

A Curaçao fan waves the country’s flag during the FIFA World Cup match between Netherlands and Sweden on June 20, 2026 in Houston, Texas. | Alex Slitz/Getty Images

SMALLEST TEAM, BIGGEST PITCH: While Curaçao’s players were busy training for their match against Ecuador, government officials from the World Cup’s smallest-ever competitor hosted a two-day conference in Kansas City to promote it as a destination for American investment, reports Sonia Rijnen.

The Caribbean island of around 158,000 people located just north of Venezuela is a semi-autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is not quite a country, but since the sporting world is treating it like one this month — including in tomorrow’s encounter with Côte d’Ivoire — the government is hoping foreign investors will give it a fresh look.

“Curaçao is now on an international stage, while we never thought we would be there … we want more people to know about Curaçao and invest,” Roderick Middelhof, Curaçao’s minister of economic development, told POLITICO.

After the team qualified for a World Cup spot last November, Curaçao’s government quickly began discussing how the tournament could showcase the island’s economic potential.

“When we knew that we would be going to the World Cup, the government sat together and said, ‘OK, we need to take advantage of this moment,’” Middelhof said. “It was actually together with other ministers that we thought, ‘OK, let’s organize meetings and show people what Curaçao is now, and what Curaçao will be in a few years with expansion and investment.’”

The Kansas City conference is one of several in World Cup cities organized by the economic-development ministry in partnership with CINEX, an agency that seeks to promote investment opportunities in Curaçao. The events target companies interested in sectors ranging from energy and logistics to hospitality.

“[We invite] all companies that are interested in our oil sector and also other companies that are interested in international investment, so hotel owners, energy companies. For example, we had Total; Epson was also there at one of the meetings,” Middelhof said.

Diversifying the economy beyond tourism is a key objective for the government, according to Middelhof. While tourism remains one of the island’s main economic pillars, he sees significant potential in Curaçao’s deep-water harbor, which could serve as a storage and logistics hub for international cargo, including oil.

“Our port is now really expanding, so the port of Curaçao is ready to provide storage space for other countries; it’s not just about tourism,” he said, adding: “Curaçao now has the chance to not only rely on tourism, we can strive for more … and show Curaçao is open for various businesses.”

Middelhof does acknowledge that the World Cup presents an opportunity to boost and further “stabilize” his country’s tourism sector, particularly as authorities pursue a target of 1 million stay-over visitors annually. Most tourists currently come from the Netherlands, reflecting the countries’ historical ties. However, Curaçao is increasingly looking to broaden its visitor base.

The island is already seeing increased international interest following its World Cup qualification, said Middelhof, pointing to a rise in Google searches and social media engagement.

“Curaçao is, for a little while, on everyone’s mind,” he said.

SPOT THE POL!: That’s Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who paid the team a visit after their 6-0 win against Qatar in Vancouver on June 18. Canada faces off against Switzerland today.

Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.

SUBSCRIBE to the POLITICO newsletter family: Brussels Playbook | London Playbook | London Playbook PM | Playbook Paris | Berlin Playbook | Sunday Crunch | EU Influence | London Influence | D.C. Playbook | D.C. Influence | Canada Playbook | POLITICO Forecast | All our POLITICO Pro policy morning newsletters