Soccer players become first North Korean athletes to visit the South in more than 7 years

By Gawon Bae, Yoonjung Seo, Brad Lendon, CNN

Incheon, South Korea (CNN) — South Korea received North Korean athletes for the first time in more than seven years on Sunday, when a women’s soccer team arrived to contest the Asian club championship.

Thirty-nine players and staff from Pyongyang’s Naegohyang Women’s Football Club rushed past a crowd of media and security at Incheon International Airport after the team arrived on a flight from Beijing.

Arriving smartly dressed in matching blazers and skirts, the North Korean players walked straight to their bus, without glancing at the gathered pro-unification groups cheering, “Welcome.”

The players and staff remained silent and emotionless until the door of their bus closed and left for Suwon under police escort.

The team’s visit doesn’t come at a time of particularly warm inter-Korean ties. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has cemented the division of the Korean Peninsula in the past month, revising the reclusive nation’s constitution to define each country as distinct territories, while removing a clause related to reunification.

All the while, North Korea has been promoting a long list of military developments, from new missile, rocket and artillery systems to new warships and submarines.

Despite North Korea’s hard-line approach, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has tried to improve relations across the demilitarized zone and decrease tensions that were prevalent under his predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol.

Seoul seems to be taking a low-key approach to Wednesday’s semi-final in the AFC Women’s Champions League, for which more than 7,000 tickets quickly sold out last week.

The match against Suwon Football Club Women will be played in the city of the same name, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of the capital.

The 39 North Koreans, including 27 players, are permitted to stay in South Korea for a week, in case they advance to the finals scheduled for Saturday at the same stadium.

The other teams competing in the final four this week in South Korea are Australia’s Melbourne City and Japan’s Tokyo Verdy Beleza.

North Korean athletes last came to the South in December 2018, when a joint North-South team competed in the International Table Tennis Federation World Grand Finals. Earlier that year, the Koreas fielded a unified women’s ice hockey team at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in the South.

For Wednesday’s game, about 3,000 seats were purchased by civil organizations forming the “joint supporters group.”

The North Korean women’s soccer program is enjoying remarkable success, something which is believed to please Kim.

In North Korea, sports are seen not just as a competition but as a source of national pride. State media often reports extensively on sporting successes.

When the soccer team won the Under-20 Women’s World Cup two years ago, Kim toasted the “patriotic celebration.”

Some of Naegohyang’s players were in the squad that lifted that trophy, while others have shone at the U-17 World Cup, of which North Korea has won the previous two editions.

The club is no stranger to games outside of North Korea, having played in Myanmar and Laos in the current competition.

The-CNN-Wire
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