North Korean women's football club Naegohyang Women's FC will travel to South Korea later this month for the semi-finals of the AFC Women's Champions League, marking the first visit by a northern sports delegation in nearly eight years. This rare cross-border trip comes at a time of deep tensions and minimal contact between the two Koreas.
Match Details and Delegation
Naegohyang, based in Pyongyang, will face South Korea's Suwon FC Women at Suwon Sports Complex on 20 May. The Asian Football Confederation confirmed the North Korean team's participation on 1 May. According to South Korea's unification ministry, a delegation of 39 people, including 27 players and 12 staff, is expected to arrive on 17 May.
This will be the first time a North Korean women's football team has competed on southern soil since the 2014 Incheon Asian Games. It is also the first visit by any North Korean sports delegation since December 2018, when a unified Korean table tennis team competed at a tournament in Incheon.
Historical Context of Inter-Korean Sports Exchanges
The 2018 visit came at the tail end of a brief period of inter-Korean sporting rapprochement. During that time, the two Koreas marched together under a unification flag at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and fielded a joint women's ice hockey team, along with North Korean officials and cheering squads visiting the South.
Since then, relations have soured dramatically. In December 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un redefined inter-Korean relations as those between "two hostile states" in a state of war, a position later reflected in state policy and reiterated as recently as March.
South Korea's Stance
South Korea's president, Lee Jae Myung, who took office in June 2025, has made reviving inter-Korean dialogue a central policy goal. In an address marking liberation day last August, he stated: "South and North Korea are not enemies." He also renounced any pursuit of unification by absorption and pledged no hostile acts.
An official at the presidential office told the Guardian that the government welcomed Naegohyang's participation in the tournament and would work with the AFC and Suwon FC "to ensure that the team can successfully compete in the match."
North Korea's Position
Pyongyang has given no public indication of a shift in position. Shortly after Lee took office, Kim Yo-jong, a senior North Korean official and the leader's powerful sister, said in a state media statement that Pyongyang had "no interest" in dialogue regardless of who led the South.
North Korea did not respond to an invitation to the 2025 world archery championships in Gwangju and withdrew from the EAFF women's football championship hosted in the South last July.
North Korea's Women's Football Strength
North Korea's women's football programme ranks among the strongest in the region, sitting 11th in the world, above Australia, China, and South Korea. Its youth teams have won the FIFA Under-17 Women's World Cup a record four times, including in 2024 and 2025, and the Under-20 equivalent three times.
Naegohyang previously beat Suwon 3-0 in the group stage last November, in Myanmar. The final will be held at the same venue on 23 May.
