 "Sex dolls used as spectator by FC Seoul in South Korea football league")
South Korea's football club FC Seoul were fined a record 100 million won ($81,000) for using sex dolls to fill seats at a match held behind closed doors.
The K-League officials said that the football club had "deeply humiliated women fans".
With spectators barred because of the coronavirus, FC Seoul came under fire after dozens of dolls wearing T-shirts or holding placards with the logo of a sex-toy seller appeared at Sunday's game.
In the absence of spectators, organisers have tried several ways -- Robot drummers, Baseball barbecue --- to make empty stadium more appealing.
Here are some of the innovative ideas used by organisers:
Robot drummers
Sport took a surreal twist when Taiwan's baseball league started last month, with robots providing live music as they drummed in the stands. In what could have been a scene from Star Wars, a group of robots -- some wearing wigs -- banged drums for Rakuten Monkeys' opening game.
Mannequins wearing team colours were placed around the stadium, along with cardboard cut-outs of fans, media and players' family members.
Crowd sourcing
Cardboard cut-outs have been a popular way to fill seats, but German football club Borussia Moenchengladbach took the idea a step further when it gave fans the chance to have life-sized images of themselves in the stands.
Thousands of people have taken up the offer, where they pay 19 euros to have their image placed in the Borussia-Park stadium.
"The campaign organisers are regularly overrun with orders -- we can hardly keep up trying to install them all," fan representative Thomas Weinmann told the Bundesliga website.
Piped noise
The sound of tinny, recorded cheering has replaced the roar of the crowd in some stadiums. In South Korea's K-League, recordings of popular chants have echoed around the country's empty football venues, some of which hosted games at the 2002 World Cup.
Meanwhile, TV viewers of Australian Rules football will hear pre-recorded crowd noises laid over the match footage when games return next month.
"We've had a number of different trials and consulted a number of people, including from the movie business, just to get it right," Lewis Martin, managing director of broadcaster Channel Seven, told AFL.com.au.
The K-League officials said that the football club had "deeply humiliated women fans".
With spectators barred because of the coronavirus, FC Seoul came under fire after dozens of dolls wearing T-shirts or holding placards with the logo of a sex-toy seller appeared at Sunday's game.
In the absence of spectators, organisers have tried several ways -- Robot drummers, Baseball barbecue --- to make empty stadium more appealing.
Here are some of the innovative ideas used by organisers:
Robot drummers
Sport took a surreal twist when Taiwan's baseball league started last month, with robots providing live music as they drummed in the stands. In what could have been a scene from Star Wars, a group of robots -- some wearing wigs -- banged drums for Rakuten Monkeys' opening game.
Mannequins wearing team colours were placed around the stadium, along with cardboard cut-outs of fans, media and players' family members.
Crowd sourcing
Cardboard cut-outs have been a popular way to fill seats, but German football club Borussia Moenchengladbach took the idea a step further when it gave fans the chance to have life-sized images of themselves in the stands.
Thousands of people have taken up the offer, where they pay 19 euros to have their image placed in the Borussia-Park stadium.
"The campaign organisers are regularly overrun with orders -- we can hardly keep up trying to install them all," fan representative Thomas Weinmann told the Bundesliga website.
Piped noise
The sound of tinny, recorded cheering has replaced the roar of the crowd in some stadiums. In South Korea's K-League, recordings of popular chants have echoed around the country's empty football venues, some of which hosted games at the 2002 World Cup.
Meanwhile, TV viewers of Australian Rules football will hear pre-recorded crowd noises laid over the match footage when games return next month.
"We've had a number of different trials and consulted a number of people, including from the movie business, just to get it right," Lewis Martin, managing director of broadcaster Channel Seven, told AFL.com.au.
