<Anchor> The



banner of the so-called Admiral Yi Sun-sin, which our team put up at the Tokyo Olympic Athletes' Village, was removed in two days. It was said that Shin still had the support of the people,


but it was confirmed

that the Olympic Committee IOC had

been putting pressure on him to take disciplinary action if

he

did not

take

down the

banner

.



This is the exclusive report by Kwon Jong-oh.



<Reporter> On



the 15th, the Korea Sports Association put up a banner that applied Admiral Yi Sun-sin's famous words to the dormitory building of our team, and even at this time, the IOC did not take issue with it at all.



However, yesterday (16th), when the Japanese media protested that it was a political message and far-right groups took part in a protest waving the Rising Sun flag, the attitude changed.



An IOC official visited the Athletes' Village and strongly demanded the removal of the banners our athletes put up.



A high-ranking IOC official has threatened to punish them if they don't take down the banner.



However, when our athletes expressed their refusal, the IOC sent a letter to the Korea Sports Council twice asking for its removal.



The so-called 'General Admiral Yi Sun-sin banner' directly violated Article 50 of the Olympic Charter, which prohibits political propaganda.



The Korean Sports Council voluntarily removed the banner today due to the unexpected strong disciplinary pressure from the IOC.



[Park Cheol-geun / Vice-President of the Korea Sports Association: First of all, the IOC contacted me that it was a violation, so we took this into account so that it would not be violated.]



The IOC, which had been silent on our side's request to ban the use of the Rising Sun Flag, said it would apply the same principle to the Rising Sun Flag, but it is not expected to have much meaning in a situation where the game will be played without spectators.



In the place where the banner of Yi Sun-sin was removed, the team hung up banners with the words 'Fusion Gugak' and 'Beom is coming down' used to promote Korea.



(Video coverage: Seol Seol-hwan, video editing: Park Chun-bae, screen provided: Yonhap News)