Port Adelaide chairman David Koch has capitalised on easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula by announcing that the Power will travel to North Korea for a regular season match in 2019.
The move was readily supported by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, who offered to force fifty thousand spectators to attend the game.
“We definitely see North Korea as an emerging market,” Koch told the media.
“The people of North Korea lack variety in their lives. They receive a very narrow education, their diets are strictly limited, they have no say whatsoever in their country’s leadership, and they have only one television channel and no access to the internet.
“We believe the region will wholeheartedly embrace AFL, mainly because it’s the only genuine entertainment they’ll experience in the foreseeable future.”
It’s unclear whether spectators will attend the game wearing team colours, as expressing support for Port Adelaide may be interpreted as disloyalty to Kim Jong-un’s regime, and hence punishable by death.
AFL chairman Gil McLachlan approved Kochie’s move, despite initial reservations.
“I originally wasn’t too keen on sending two AFL teams into the most politically and economically unstable region in the world,” McLachlan conceded.
“But Kochie was so enthusiastic about the idea, I ended up just letting him have his way.
“I’m sure it’ll boost merch sales or television ratings somehow.”
Port Adelaide’s opposition is yet to be confirmed, but Malcolm Turnbull reportedly rang Kochie at 3am in the morning in a state of panic, urging him not to tee anything up with Essendon.
“We don’t want Kim to hear that Australia is sending ‘the Bombers into North Korea’,” Turnbull said breathlessly, according to reports.