The North Korean women’s soccer team arrives in South Korea for a regional tournament

A North Korean women’s soccer team arrived in South Korea on Sunday to participate in a regional tournament, the first visit by North Korean athletes in eight years amid political tensions between the two countries.

A total of 39 players and staff from North Korea’s Naegohyang Women’s FC arrived at Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul, boarding a plane from China. They made no comment, although some activists shouted, «Welcome! Welcome!» and citizens used their mobile phones to film their arrival.

The North Korean team will face South Korea’s Suwon FC Women in the semi-finals of the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Champions League on Wednesday in Suwon, a city south of Seoul.

The two Koreas have occasionally used sporting events to create feel-good moments when relations have been amicable. But the latest football event is unlikely to herald a thaw in their long-strained ties, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un maintaining his confrontational stance towards South Korea.

“We should be cautious about interpreting their visit to South Korea as a sign of an improvement in South-North relations,” Lee Wootae, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said in a recent report. “It would be more accurate to see this as limited South North Korean contact within the context of international sport.”

In recent years, Kim has repeatedly called South Korea his country’s primary enemy and taken steps to eliminate the idea of ​​a shared state and establish a hostile «two-state» system on the Korean Peninsula. Observers say such a move likely stems from Kim’s wariness of South Korea’s cultural influence and his perceived perception that South Korea is no longer useful in dealing with the US.

North Korea last sent its athletes to South Korea for a table tennis event in December 2018. At the time, North and South Korea were engaged in a flurry of exchange and cooperation programs following the North’s participation in the Pyeongchang Olympics in South Korea earlier in 2018.

The brief period of inter-Korean detente ended after a US-led diplomacy on ending North Korea’s nuclear program collapsed in 2019 due to disputes over international sanctions against the North. North Korea has since carried out a provocative series of weapons tests to expand its nuclear arsenal and has rejected South Korean and American offers to restore diplomacy.

South Korea’s current liberal government, led by President Lee Jae Myung, is pursuing rapprochement with North Korea. The government said it will provide financial support to civil society groups planning to organize a 3,000-member squad to cheer on both North and South Korean teams in Wednesday’s match.

“We will enthusiastically cheer them on by chanting the names of both teams and their players, while faithfully adhering to the AFC guidelines,” the civic groups said in a joint statement.

North Korea is a powerhouse in women’s football, especially at youth level. It has won the Women’s Under-17 World Cup four times and the Women’s Under-20 World Cup three times. Naegohyang Women’s FC defeated Suwon FC Women 3-0 in the group stage in Myanmar last November.

Melbourne City FC and Tokyo Verdy Beleza will face each other in the other semi-final on Wednesday. The final is scheduled for Saturday in a stadium in Suwon.

Published on May 17, 2026