[News Today] NK women’s football team enters S.Korea

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North Korea's Naegohyang FC women's football team arrived at Incheon International Airport yesterday. It's the first time a North Korean women's football club has visited South Korea.

It also marks the first visit by a North Korean sports delegation in more than seven years.

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Members of North Korean women's football team, Naegohyang FC, in skirt suits walk out of the airport with a stern look on their faces.

The North Korean delegation consisting of more than thirty members, including some twenty athletes, arrived in South Korea.

[Can you tell us how you feel?] ….

The North Korean footballers left the airport without saying anything and boarded a bus to their hotel.

This is the first time a North Korean female football club visited South Korea.

It is also the first visit to South Korea by North Korean athletes of any sport in seven years and five months since December 2018.

It's noteworthy because the North Korean sports team's first visit came after the regime made a 'two hostile states' declaration in 2023.

Unlike South Korea, however, the North Korean media didn't report anything about the occasion.

North Korea's Naegohyang FC will face South Korea's Suwon FC women on May 20th. All seven thousand seats are sold out.

The joint cheering squad will not use such words as 'Republic of Korea', 'North Korea' or 'Joseon'. Instead, they will root for only individual teams and players.

Cheong Wook-sik / Joint Cheering Squad Leader

We’ll cheer using player names to minimize political controversy and make the games enjoyable.

If Naegohyang FC wins the semifinal match, it will play in the finals on May 23rd before returning to North Korea.