Thailand's claim that Japan threw volleyball qualifier rejected

Um, realistically, why should the Japanese cheer for any other team than Japan? Saying that one can hear a pin drop when the other team scores is really, a moot point. Perhaps if the visiting countries' fans were to travel to Japan to actually watch and cheer on their team, it would naturally be a different ball game (excuse the pun). That being said, I have been to many international volleyball tourneys here in Japan, and at times there ARE in fact other cheering sections. And yes, Japan does have its fair share of volleyball tournaments, but so do other countries - we just don't hear about it much because the games aren't usually on Japanese tv.

The reason all these tournaments are held in Japan is because it is the only country where you are going to have packed stadiums which means more money for the governing bodies. Did you see the women's world cup games last year? The stadiums were about 10% full if that. I used the wonder the same thing as this gives an advantage to the Japanese teams. But in the end it just means more money for the teams.

If anything, I'd like to know why all the damn competitions are held in Japan where no one in the stadium claps for the teams playing against Japan. You can hear a pin drop when the other team wins a point. This ain't gonna happen in London.

Oh good grief, after the Japanese took the second set from the Serbs, ensuring their London ticket, the pressure was off, it didn't matter if they lost the next two sets and the match, they were going to London. Too bad for the Thais, they're not going because they didn't take enough sets in this tournament.

I think the Thai coach is horribly over-estimating Japan...that's their level,coach.

Hmm...the interviews after the game actually showed how much the Japanese players were broken down by the Russian team the other day in which they conceded defeat to the Serbians the following day. Fixing? I doubt it. In the interview i did not see any Japanese player smiling and they seem to lost their spirit in which the reporter got a little bit angry and chided the team to be more positive even after the defeat. But the team kept on saying yeah we hope not to be eliminated in the first round and nobody was saying we can make it to the best 4 or win a medal.