North Korean club says focused only on football during rare South Korea visit

SUWON, South Korea: ‌North Korea’s Naegohyang FC will focus only on football during their rare visit to South Korea, their coach said on Tuesday when asked about a 3,000-strong cheering squad organized by activist groups for their game against Suwon FC Women.
Naegohyang face the South Korean club in the Asian Women’s Champions League semifinals in Suwon on Wednesday, ‌marking the ‌first visit by North Korean ‌athletes ⁠to the South ⁠in eight years.
More than 200 South Korean civic groups have formed a squad to cheer on both teams, saying they support fair play and peace, according to Yonhap news agency.
“We came here strictly to ⁠play the match … We are focused ‌solely on tomorrow’s match ‌and the matches ahead,” Naegohyang Women’s FC ‌Coach Ri Yu Il told a press ‌conference.
“The issue of the cheering squad is not something I, as coach, or our players are thinking about.

I think we will focus ‌only on the game.”
Naegohyang captain Kim Kyong Yong said the team ⁠would ⁠strive to make their families proud.
“To repay the trust and expectations of … our parents and siblings, we will give everything,” she told the press conference.
The delegation of 27 players and 12 staff arrived on Sunday, with its stay approved under South Korea’s inter-Korean exchange law.
The visit comes despite strained ties between the two Koreas, with Pyongyang recently calling Seoul its “most hostile state.”