The North's official Korean Central News Agency and other media carried the undated photos of Mr Kim, which they said showed him watching two army teams, according to South Korea's unification ministry, the body that monitors North Korean media.

Analysts in Seoul said the Government was struggling to calm jitters about Mr Kim, who is said to be recovering from a stroke and brain surgery in mid-August.

In one of the photos, Mr Kim sits smiling on a sofa inside a glass structure wearing his trademark sunglasses. His full cheeks and bouffant hair look the same as usual.

With his deputies standing or sitting nearby, Mr Kim wears a brown winter jacket. Trees near him have autumnal leaves.

The North's state television and Rodong Simnum newspaper also carried 14 different photos of Mr Kim apparently watching the game and standing and giving instructions to his deputies outside an unidentified building. There are also pictures of players on the football pitch.

None of the North Korean media said when or where the photos were taken. KCNA earlier reported that Mr Kim watched the match between two army teams, Mangyongbong and Jebi, but did not say when.

South Korea's main spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said it was analysing the photos, but refused to elaborate.

A North Korean expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, Professor Kim Yong-hyun, said, ''North Koreans are desperately stepping up their efforts to send a message: Mr Kim is doing well. He is firmly in control.''

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said there was no single photo of both Mr Kim and the game featured in the same frame.

A professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, Yang Moo-jin, said the issuing of the photo was primarily to stop possible unrest at home.

''The absence of [publicity for Mr] Kim, who serves as the apex of the North's society, would inevitably cause social loosening,'' Professor Yang said, adding that Mr Kim still had a tight grip on the reclusive country.

The photograph was the latest effort by North Korea apparently aimed at suggesting Mr Kim is well, after widespread overseas reports that the 66-year-old suffered a mid-August stroke.

A neurologist at Seoul's Kangnam St Mary's Hospital, Kim Yeong-in, said the pictures appeared to support the stroke theory. ''He looks to have a paralysis on the left side of his body, if he can move only the right hand as seen in the photos.''

Mr Kim's health is the subject of intense speculation because he has not publicly nominated a successor to run the impoverished, nuclear-armed nation.

Japan's Prime Minister, Taro Aso, said last week that Mr Kim was probably in hospital but still capable of making decisions about the communist state. AFP