"The Japanese press corps expelled," declared the front-page headline in the Nikkan Sports newspaper, in a report from the sub-tropical island of Hainan where the team set up its camp last Tuesday.

North Korean team officials on Saturday started chasing away Japanese media people, particularly television crews, from a soccer field which they had been using, the paper said.

They earlier vowed to prevent Japanese team players or officials from observing workouts and have asked local officials to raise a two-metre-tall (6.6 foot) wall around the ground to block Japanese cameramen, it said.

The North Korean team will play three Chinese League clubs in Hainan but spectators are unlikely to be admitted, the paper said.

North Korea and Japan meet at Saitama near Tokyo on February 9 in their opener of the final Asian qualifying round, amid simmering anger over the Stalinist state's abductions of Japanese during the Cold War.