Seoul’s Unification Ministry said Monday that a North Korean women’s soccer club will travel to South Korea for a rare match between the rival neighbors, the first North Korean sports team to play on South Korean soil since 2018.
Naegohyang Women’s FC is scheduled to meet Suwon FC Women on May 20 in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Champions League semi-final. The Unification Ministry said Pyongyang submitted a delegation list of 27 players and 12 staff who will visit for the semi-final, but gave no exact arrival date; AFP reported the team would arrive on May 17.
The semi-final winner will advance to the final on May 23 to face either Australia’s Melbourne City or Japan’s Tokyo Verdy Beleza. The ministry said the losing team will return home on Thursday, May 21, and there is no third-place playoff planned.
North Korean athletes last competed in the South in 2018, when delegations for shooting, youth football and table tennis traveled south. That year also saw a historic unified women’s ice hockey team at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
The announcement comes as President Lee Jae Myung’s administration seeks to repair a years-long strained relationship with Pyongyang. The two Koreas remain technically at war after the 1950–53 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a formal peace treaty.
Edited by: Rana Taha