North Korea's Naegohyang Faces Suwon FC Women in Asian Women's Champions League Semi-Final in South Korea

SEOUL -- North Korea's women's football club Naegohyang will face Suwon FC Women in the semi-finals of the Asian Women's Champions League on May 20 at Suwon Sports Complex south of Seoul. The match represents the first time North Korean athletes have entered South Korean territory since 2018.

South Korea's Unification Ministry confirmed the trip on Monday, stating that Pyongyang submitted a list of 27 players and 12 staff for the delegation.

The losing semi-final team will depart South Korea on May 21, with no third-place playoff planned, the Unification Ministry said.

Naegohyang, founded in 2012 and based in Pyongyang, is making its debut in the Asian Women's Champions League. The club qualified for the semi-finals after defeating Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City 3-0 in the quarter-final. In the group stage, Naegohyang beat Suwon and ISPE to advance.

Much of the squad consists of national team-level players, the Unification Ministry stated. North Korea's national women's team recently won the U-17 Women's World Cup in November 2025, defeating the Netherlands 3-0 in the final. This visit follows a period of limited inter-Korean sports exchanges.

The last time North Korean athletes crossed the border was during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, where the two countries formed a unified ice hockey team. Additional delegations from North Korea participated in South Korea that year for shooting, youth football, and table tennis events.

The previous appearance of a North Korean women's football team in South Korea occurred in 2014 at the Incheon Asian Games, where they defeated Japan 3-1 on October 1.

The men's team lost to South Korea 1-0 the next day on October 2, with Rim Chang-woo scoring in the 121st minute from a rebound. The two Koreas remain technically at war, as their 1950-53 conflict concluded with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

Diplomatic relations have deteriorated in recent years, with North Korea designating South Korea as its principal enemy and abandoning reunification goals.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has sought to improve ties through such exchanges. In a separate development, families holding judgments against North Korea for decades-old terrorist acts have filed to seize 30,765 ETH frozen on the Arbitrum network following the rsETH exploit last month.

The effort, led by a lawyer who posted on Arbitrum DAO forums, cites alleged connections between the exploit and North Korea-linked hacking groups like Lazarus.

The filing invokes a New York restraining notice that could prevent Arbitrum from releasing the funds. South Korea's Maritime Ministry reported an explosion in the engine room of a Korean vessel on Monday, though details on the incident remain limited.