Japan hopes to ban noisy trumpets
Japan’s football chief has raised the decibel level against vuvuzelas, long plastic trumpets used by South African supporters, at next year’s World Cup.
The Blue Samurai were exposed to the ubiquitous horns when they battled to a 0-0 friendly draw against next year’s World Cup hosts in their first senior-level encounter, in Port Elizabeth Sunday.
“I’ve asked the South African Football Association to ban the noise,” Japan Football Association President Motoaki Inukai told Japanese media before leaving Johannesburg yesterday.
“We can’t hear sounds from five meters away,” he said.
But it seems that the Japanese had mixed views on the trumpets.
“It was good for us to feel the atmosphere as a whole,” said Espanyol midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura.
The trumpets baffled some foreign teams and broadcasters in South Africa during the Confederations Cup there last June with several non-African players and coaches calling for a ban.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter, however, has given the vuvuzela his blessing, telling detractors that dance and music is important in Africa and that moaning about the instrument bordered on discrimination.