'We welcome you': North Korean women football team arrives in South for a rare match

In a rare display of cross-border engagement, the North Korean women’s football team arrived in South Korea on Sunday for the first visit by a sports delegation from the North in eight years, ahead of the Asian Champions League semi-finals.

Naegohyang Women's FC, which translates to “My Hometown” in Korean, arrived at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport on Sunday to a flurry of media attention and warm greetings from supporters.

The 39-member squad and staff, dressed in matching dark jackets and skirts and wheeling pink suitcases, walked through the airport amid crowds of reporters and members of South Korean civic groups holding welcome banners.

The North Korean side will take on South Korea’s Suwon FC Women in the semi-finals of the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Champions League on Wednesday in Suwon, south of Seoul.

“We welcome you!” supporters shouted as the players passed through a cordoned-off route at the airport under heavy security. The team then quickly boarded a bus, which departed under police escort.

Founded in 2012, Naegohyang Women's FC won North Korea’s top-flight women’s league title in the 2021-22 season and secured a commanding 3-0 victory over Suwon FC Women during last year’s tournament group stage.

The North Korean delegation arrived in South Korea via Beijing and is expected to stay at a hotel in Suwon, south of Seoul. According to local media reports, the North and South Korean teams will use separate dining facilities and travel routes during the tournament, minimising direct interaction.

The two Koreas have at times used sporting events to foster symbolic moments of unity during periods of improved relations. However, the latest football tournament is unlikely to signal any easing of tensions, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continuing to adopt a hardline stance toward South Korea.

Public interest in the semi-final has been high, with more than 7,000 tickets reportedly selling out within hours.

Seoul’s Unification Ministry has also provided funding to civic groups planning to cheer on both teams, describing the match as an opportunity to promote “mutual understanding between the two Koreas," as cited by AFP.

North Korea last dispatched athletes to South Korea in December 2018 for an international table tennis tournament, during a brief phase of inter-Korean engagement marked by exchanges and cooperation initiatives.

The outreach followed the North’s participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics earlier that year.

That short-lived thaw in relations faded after US-led negotiations aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear programme collapsed in 2019 amid disagreements over international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang.