North Korean Women's Soccer Team Naegohyang FC Arrives at Incheon — First DPRK Athletic Visit to South Korea in Nearly 8 Years

A 39-member delegation from Naegohyang Women's FC — 27 players and 12 coaching and support staff — arrived at Incheon International Airport Terminal 1 on May 17, 2026, at approximately 2:20 p.m. KST, arriving on an Air China flight via Beijing. Delegates wore matching dark jackets bearing lapel badges with images of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The delegation's arrival marked the first visit by a North Korean sporting team to South Korea in nearly eight years (since 2018), and specifically the first DPRK soccer delegation visit to the South in twelve years. The visit was approved under South Korea's inter-Korean exchange law and secured after inter-Korean diplomatic communication channels, while largely frozen, allowed for the AFC Women's Asian Champions League logistical arrangements. Naegohyang, founded in 2012 and named for the Korean phrase meaning 'My Hometown,' is based in Pyongyang and won the DPRK domestic championship in 2021–22. The club had already defeated Suwon FC Women 3–0 in the ACL group stage and enters as heavy favorite for their semi-final on May 20 at Suwon Sports Complex. All 7,087 tickets for the match had sold out within hours of release. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk, who was in Seoul days earlier, had publicly welcomed the visit and called for broader resumption of inter-Korean exchanges including family reunions. South Korean authorities provided a dedicated arrival lane and security detail. The visit drew intense media attention as a rare human contact moment between the two countries at a time when Pyongyang has formally removed reunification from its constitution and declared Seoul a 'hostile foreign state.'