North Korean Women's Football Team to Play Semi-Final in South Korea as U.S. Court Seeks to Freeze ETH Linked to Pyongyang

North Korea's women's football club Naegohyang is set to travel to South Korea for a semi-final match against Suwon in the Asian Women's Champions League on May 20, 2026, at the Suwon Sports Complex. Pyongyang sent a list of 27 players and 12 staff for the trip, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry.

The visit marks the first time North Korean athletes have entered South Korean territory in eight years, since the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics when the two nations formed a joint ice hockey squad.

Naegohyang secured their place in the semi-finals with a 3-0 victory over Vietnamese club Ho Chi Minh City in the quarter-final stage. The team beat Suwon and ISPE to qualify from the group stage of the Women's Champions League this season, marking their debut in the competition.

The championship final is scheduled for May 23, 2026, in Suwon, where the winner of the semi-final will face either Melbourne City or Tokyo Verdy.

The last time a North Korean football team played in South Korea was in 2014 during the Incheon Asian Games. On October 2, 2014, South Korea beat North Korea 1-0 with a 121st-minute goal by Rim Chang-woo. The day before, on October 1, 2014, North Korea's women's side beat Japan 3-1 in the Incheon Asian Games.

The two Koreas are technically still at war, as no formal peace agreement was signed after the Korean War ended in 1953. The trip represents a rare cross-border journey amid strained relations, with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung seeking to improve ties. North Korea has labeled South Korea its most hostile state and abandoned aspirations toward reunification.

Separately, a lawyer representing victims of North Korean terrorism served Arbitrum DAO with a New York restraining notice seeking to block the release of 30,765 ETH frozen after the rsETH exploit. The frozen 30,765 ETH is linked to the April 19, 2026, Kelp DAO bridge exploit, which CoinDesk reported as the largest DeFi hack of 2026.

The ether was drained from restaked ETH holders during the exploit.

The restraining notice is on behalf of three sets of judgment creditors holding roughly $877 million in claims against North Korea. The filing names Arbitrum DAO as a garnishee in three federal enforcement actions: Calderon-Cardona, Kim, and Kaplan, with writs of execution totaling roughly $877 million.

The legal tool used is CPLR §5222(b), a New York enforcement mechanism that freezes assets for up to a year or until the judgment is resolved.

U.S. court. S.

Permanent resident abducted near the China border in 2000 and killed in DPRK custody. A third judgment ties to the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, where a federal judge found Pyongyang supplied weapons and training used in rocket attacks. S.

Authorities have linked the Lazarus Group, responsible for the exploit, to the North Korean state. Arbitrum's Security Council froze 30,765 ETH at a specific address on its network after the rsETH exploit. Arbitrum delegates are weighing whether to release the 30,765 ETH into a coordinated recovery effort.

Delegate Zeptimus argued in the forum that the ETH is stolen property belonging to rsETH depositors. The article on the football visit was published on May 4, 2026, by BBC News.