North Korean players go missing...?

The European press is abuzz with the news that four North Korean players have gone missing before the game with Brazil and haven't been seen since. It's difficult not to jump to conclusions. Korea DPR has a totalitarian regime and it's quite possible that the four might have fled and/or sought political asylum somewhere.

For days now I had read unconfirmed rumors on forums that N-Korean players would be sent back to the coal mines if they didn't do well in the World Cup, though that sounds much like the usual propaganda to make enemy dictatorships look bad (plus, it's just internet hearsay).

Two print sources report on virtually the same news. The most "reputable" are the UK's Daily Telegraph and the Italian La Stampa. The latter was supposedly was the first mainstream source to report the news. As for sports websites, Chilean La Tercera and Spanish AS also chime in on it, and the former claims that the news started on a South Korean web site... where exactly, though, is nowhere to be found. Finally, there's some discussion at this forum centered on a Romanian TV news source. (Remember that you can instantly translate entire pages in foreign languages with the Google Translate toolbar here).

What matters is that FIFA is silent on the whole thing on its web site, despite nearly all of the above sources claiming some sort of official confirmation from FIFA. The fact itself that the news came out nearly three days after the fact means either that something's brooding and press coverage is undesirable or that the whole thing is entirely made up or misunderstood. Hopefully we'll know more soon!