A North Korean women’s football club will become the first sports team from the country to play in South Korea since 2018 when they visit this month, Seoul’s unification ministry said Monday.
The neighbours remain 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. Naegohyang Women’s FC will play the South’s 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 staff, the ministry said. South Korea’s football association told AFP that the team would arrive on May 17. They will fly into Incheon airport on an Air China flight from Beijing, a unification ministry official told reporters. The winner of the match at Suwon Sports Complex, south of the capital Seoul, will play the final of Asia’s top women’s club competition against either Australia’s Melbourne City or Japan’s Tokyo Verdy Beleza on May 23.
“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.