{"id":77387,"date":"2026-05-17T17:56:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T08:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/may\/17\/afc-women-champions-league-north-korea-south-korea-naegohyang-fc-suwon"},"modified":"2026-05-17T17:56:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T08:56:35","slug":"tearing-down-barriers-north-korean-footballers-arrive-in-seoul-for-first-time-in-eight-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=77387","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Tearing down barriers\u2019: North Korean footballers arrive in Seoul for first time in eight years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Naegohyang FC due to play Suwon FC in semi-final of Asian Women\u2019s Champions League on Wednesday<\/p>\n<p>A North Korean women\u2019s football club has arrived in South Korea for an AFC Women\u2019s Champions League semi-final, marking the first visit by athletes from the isolated state to the South in eight years.<\/p>\n<p>The delegation of 27 players and 12 staff entered the country on Sunday before Wednesday\u2019s match between Naegohyang FC and South Korea\u2019s Suwon FC Women in Suwon.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/may\/17\/afc-women-champions-league-north-korea-south-korea-naegohyang-fc-suwon\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Naegohyang FC due to play Suwon FC in semi-final of Asian Women\u2019s Champions League on WednesdayA North Korean women\u2019s football club has arrived in South Korea for an AFC Women\u2019s Champions League semi-final, marking the first visit by athletes from the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,3552,627,40,222,203,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-asian-champions-league","category-football","category-north-korea","category-south-korea","category-sport","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/288"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77388,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77387\/revisions\/77388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}