South Korea will not face its archrival Japan in a soccer friendly match this year, the national governing body of the sport said Wednesday, rejecting a series of recent media reports out of Tokyo.

“The Japanese papers have been reporting that South Korea and Japan will play each other in a friendly this year,” an official at the Korea Football Association said Thursday.

“But we have absolutely no plans to face Japan this year.”

This was the second time this month that the KFA has had to refute Japanese reports about a possible football clash. On July 2, Nikkan Sports said the two countries were trying to schedule a friendly match this year, after agreeing to do so in August 2011 in Sapporo.

Then on Wednesday, Sports Nippon claimed the two will play each other on Oct. 10.

The KFA official said the two countries had reached “a verbal agreement” in 2011 to schedule a match in South Korea ahead of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, which took place from June 12 to July 13. (Yonhap)