North Korean club to play rare football match in South Korea

SEOUL: A North Korean women's football club will be the first sports team from the country to play in neighbouring South Korea since 2018 when they visit this month, Seoul's unification ministry said on Monday (May 4).

The two Koreas technically remain at war after their 1950 to 1953 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, and sporting and cultural exchanges between them are very rare.

The ministry said North Korean authorities sent South Korea a "notification of a 39-member delegation" from Naegohyang Women's FC, which will play South Korea's Suwon FC Women on May 20 in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

The delegation will include 27 players and 12 club staff, the ministry said. It did not say when exactly the team would arrive in South Korea.

The winner of the match will play the final of Asia's top women's club competition on May 23 against either Australia's Melbourne City or Japan's Tokyo Verdy Beleza.

"The losing team in the semi-final will return home on Thursday, May 21, with no third-place playoff scheduled," the ministry said in a press release.

The match will be the first time a North Korean sports team has played in the South since shooting, youth football and table tennis delegations travelled there in 2018.

The last time Pyongyang sent a women's football team to South Korea was in 2014, when the North Korean national team took part in the Asian Games in Incheon.

North Korea's national team is one of the dominant forces in Asian women's football, winning multiple international titles in recent years, especially at the youth level.

The most recent one came in November last year, when they defeated the Netherlands 3-0 in the final of the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup.