A North Korean women's football team landed in South Korea on Sunday, marking the first visit by a sports team from the isolated country to its southern neighbor in eight years. They are set to play in the Asian Champions League semi-finals.
Naegohyang Women's FC emerged from Incheon International Airport near Seoul surrounded by reporters and supporters holding welcome signs. The 39 players and staff, dressed in identical dark jackets and skirts and wheeling pink suitcases, were greeted by dozens of South Korean civic group members. The players quickly boarded a bus and departed the airport under police escort.
Naegohyang, based in Pyongyang, will face Suwon FC Women in the semi-finals on Wednesday. The club won North Korea's top-flight title in the 2021-22 season and previously defeated Suwon 3-0 in the group stage. The team arrived via Beijing on a commercial flight and will stay in Suwon, south of Seoul, in the same hotel as the South Korean team but with separate dining areas and travel routes.
Interest is intense: over 7,000 tickets sold out within hours for the match at Suwon Sports Complex (capacity just under 12,000). Seoul's unification ministry has funded civic groups supporting both teams. Waving North Korean flags in public is prohibited under national security law; groups instead plan to wave flags depicting the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea's women's national team is ranked 11th in FIFA rankings, far ahead of the men's team at 118th.