Naegohyang FC will play South Suwon FC on May 20 in the semi-final of the Women's Asian Champions League.
Posted on May 4, 2026
A North Korean women's soccer club will become the country's first sports team to play in South Korea since 2018 when it visits this month, Seoul's Unification Ministry confirmed.
The neighbors are still technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, and sporting and cultural exchanges between them are very rare.
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Naegohyang Women's FC will play South Suwon FC Women on May 20 in the semi-finals of the Asian Champions League.
The visiting delegation will include 27 players and 12 club employees, the ministry said on Monday. South Korea's football association told the AFP news agency that the team would arrive on May 17.
They will arrive at Incheon airport on an Air China flight from Beijing, a Unification Ministry official said.
The winner of the match at the Suwon Sports Complex, south of the capital Seoul, will play in the final of Asia's premier women's club competition against Australia's Melbourne City or Japan's Verdy Beleza Tokyo on May 23.
“The losing team in the semifinal will return home on Thursday, May 21, without a match for third place being scheduled,” the ministry statement added.
The match will be the first time a North Korean sports team has played in the South since shooting, youth soccer and table tennis delegations traveled there in 2018.
The last time Pyongyang sent a women's soccer team to the South was in 2014, when the North Korean team participated in the Incheon Asian Games.
Founded in 2012 and based in the North Korean capital, much of Naegohyang's team is “made up of national team players,” the ministry said.
The North Korean national team is one of the dominant forces in Asian women's football and has won multiple international titles in recent years, especially at youth level.
The most recent came in November last year, when they defeated the Netherlands 3-0 in the final of the U-17 Women's World Cup.
