A South Korean footballer will be excused military service as a reward for his Olympic performance despite controversially displaying a sign on a territorial dispute, an official said. Park Jong-Woo was barred from the medal ceremony after he held up a sign reading "Dokdo is our land" while celebrating his team's 2-0 win over Japan last Friday.
The Seoul-controlled islands, known as Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan, are the subject of a decades-old territorial dispute. The row flared again Friday when South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak made a surprise visit to the islands in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), hours before the match.