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Tokyo, May 26: The remote Japanese town hosting England’s squad may have to dip in to its treasured gold bullion to help meet security costs if Sven-Goran Erikkson’s men get through the first round.
"We think we have enough budget to fund the camp through the first round of the tournament," a spokeswoman for the Tsuna Town government told AFP. "But if the English team does well and keeps winning in the knock-out round, our budget might fall about 19 million yen ($150,794) short.
"As one possible way of covering the expected shortfall, the Mayor has said he was considering selling the town’s gold bullion," she said.
In 1989, Tsuna, with 17,000 residents on the islet of Awaji off Kobe, bought the 62.696 kilogram piece of gold bullion with a 100 million yen special government grant to make it a tourist attraction. The previous year, the Japanese government distributed 100 million yen each to 3,268 municipalities across the nation, including Tsuna, to help revitalise their economy. Tsuna officials claimed the gold bullion, which the town allows visitors to touch, has been a core of the town’s tourism, attracting more than 3.2 million tourists to the town some 500 kilometres southwest of Tokyo. Tsuna is accessible by boat or the world’s longestsuspension bridge.
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