North Korean soccer club Naegohyang Women’s FC will visit South Korea to play a match against Suwon FC Women on May 20. The match is a semi-final of the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Champions League and will take place in Suwon. South Korea's Unification Ministry announced that the North Korean delegation, consisting of 27 players and 12 staff, is expected to arrive on May 17.
The semi-final match is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. (1000 GMT). The winner will face either Melbourne City or Tokyo Verdy in the final, which will also be played in Suwon on May 23. If the North Korean club loses in the semi-final, the athletes will return home the next day. Although the AFC notified South Korea’s soccer body that the team's participation was confirmed, North Korea’s state media has not reported on the trip.
This event marks a rare instance of cross-border engagement and the first time in eight years that a North Korean sports team will play in the South. The last time Pyongyang sent athletes to South Korea was in 2018, during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and a table tennis event. The last time North Korean female soccer players competed in the South was for the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon.
The sports exchange comes as diplomatic ties between the two Koreas remain frozen. North Korea has recently labeled South Korea its most hostile state and stated it would no longer seek reunification. Since 2019, leader Kim Jong Un has suspended meaningful diplomacy with Seoul and Washington and pushed a domestic campaign to eliminate the influence of South Korean culture and language. Concurrently, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has been seeking to improve these strained ties.