Naegohyang FC, Pyongyang team
Rare meeting scheduled for the 20th. It is the first time in eight years that North Korean athletes have gone to the South — the first in 12 years in women’s football.
The South Korean government said this Monday that a North women’s football team set to play in South Korea this month, in a rare sporting exchange between rivals, who have technically been at war since 1953.
South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, responsible for inter-Korean affairs, said in a statement that the women’s team Naegohyang FC is expected on May 20th.
Naegohyang FC, from the North Korean capital Pyongyang, is expected to face Suwon FCin the semi-final of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Champions League.
The Korean Football Association (KFA), South Korea’s highest football body, said it had been notified by the AFC that Naegohyang FC had sent a list of players and members of the coaching staff who will go to Suwon.
The KFA stressed that North Korea will be fined by the AFC, if the team does not participate in the semifinal in Suwon, a city located south of the South Korean capital Seoul.
North Korean state media made no mention of this trip.
First time in eight years
Pyongyang last sent athletes to Seoul in December 2018for a table tennis event, in a period marked by the participation of North Korean athletes in the Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, in early 2018.
North Korea also sent its women’s national football team to the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, in what was the last time the football players competed in the South.
Naegohyang FC defeated Suwon FC 3-0 in the group stage of the Women’s Champions League in Myanmar (formerly Burma) in 2025, before beating a team from Vietnam in the quarter-finals.
The winners of the May 20 semi-finals will face each other in the final three days later, also in Suwon, with Melbourne City FC and Tokyo Verdy Beleza meeting in the other semi-final.
More tensions, fewer sports exchanges
Although athletes from the two countries have previously competed on mixed teams and paraded together in ceremonies, sporting exchanges have declined as inter-Korean relations have deteriorated.
A North Korea has avoided negotiations with the South and with the United States (USA) since the failure, in 2019, of diplomatic contacts between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.
Kim has intensified Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile program, targeting US Asian allies and the North American mainland, as well as hardening his stance towards South Korea.
Kim classified Seoul as Pyongyang’s greatest adversary and authorities launched a campaign to repress the influence of South Korean culture among the North Korean population.
Pyongyang and Seoul did not officially sign a peace treaty after the 1950-1953 Korean War, so they are technically still at war.
