North Korea on Saturday broadcast a pirate recording of Friday's opening FIFA World Cup match in South Africa, a South Korean news agency reported.

Yonhap, quoting South Korean broadcaster SBS, reported that a recording of South Africa and Mexico's 1-1 draw on Friday had been broadcast via the North's Korean Central Broadcast Service.

"The North's broadcast was unauthorised as we have the broadcasting rights for entire Korean peninsula," Yonhap quoted an SBS official as saying, adding that the company considered itself a victim of piracy.

"The company will decide its measure after determining how North Korea secured the footage," the official told Yonhap.

Earlier this week SBS said it had sought to provide World Cup broadcasts to North Korea, which, like South Korea, has a team participating in the tournament now under way in South Africa.

However, SBS said that its negotiations to provide North Korea with World Cup broadcasts had been halted amid tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang over the sinking of a South Korean warship in March.

Seoul has concluded that a North Korean submarine fired a torpedo that sank the 1,200-tonne corvette Cheonan with the loss of 46 lives, and is now pushing for the UN Security Council to censure the North.

Pyongyang has vehemently denied it was responsible and has warned of reprisals should it be punished.

A spokesman for SBS said this week that the station would not be broadcasting World Cup games to North Korea after negotiations over a fee with the impoverished communist state had broken down.

"Talks have made little progress, especially after the sinking (of the Cheonan). Now we cannot bring the talks to a conclusion in time for the Cup," the spokesman told AFP.

North Korea, which has qualified for the World Cup for first time in 44 years, wanted the South to provide free footage, as it had done for the 2006 tournament in Germany.

Four years ago, the then-liberal government in Seoul - which practised a "sunshine" engagement policy with Pyongyang - spent millions subsidising the broadcasts to North Korea.

South Korea on Saturday beat Greece 2-0 in its first game of the 2010 World Cup. North Korea's first game is scheduled for Tuesday, against Brazil.

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