Japan's bid to change the name of the 2002 World Cup being co-hosted by South Korea and Japan was rejected by FIFA today.
Japanese organisers had wanted to put Japan before Korea on all brochures published inside Japan but South Korea's powerful FIFA vice-president Chung Mong-Joon had bitterly opposed the idea.
But in a compromise FIFA's Organising Committee for the World Cup agreed that Japan could use a shortened version of the title which makes no mention of either nation.
Ticket sales were also booming and FIFA executive committee member David Will, head of FIFA's Working Group on tickets, described the month long sales campaign as "dramatically successful."
Both organising committees also reported that several new air routes between venue cities in Japan and Korea were to be introduced.