North Korea’s footballers stepped into Japan on Friday dressed like diplomats and greeted like returning heroes.
White blazers, pink ties, blue trousers, light blue shirts. The North Korean flag stitched neatly on the breast pocket. As the men’s team walked through arrivals at Osaka, a wall of sound met them: songs in their honour, flags waving, hands reaching out from a crowd of pro-Pyongyang supporters who had waited to welcome them.
Bouquets were handed over. Players smiled, waved from the bus windows, high-fived well-wishers through the open doors. It felt more like a homecoming than the start of a campaign in a country that officially bars North Korean entry.
Football returns to a complicated stage
More than 100 North Korean athletes will compete in 14 sports at the Asian Games in Nagoya-Aichi, which officially open on September 19. Football, as so often, gets going early.
The men’s side begin on September 16 against China, a fixture that immediately drops them into the spotlight. The women’s team, long a powerhouse at youth level with a reputation for ruthless efficiency and technical quality, face Bangladesh on Monday. Their group also includes South Korea, with that politically charged meeting set for September 21.
For North Korea, simply being here marks another step back into the global sporting arena. The country shut itself off from international competition during the pandemic, disappearing from schedules and qualification lists. It re-emerged at the Asian Games in China in 2023, then sent athletes to the Paris Olympics. Now comes a return to Japan, a country with which it has no diplomatic relations and where its citizens are normally banned over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes.
Yet sport carves out its own corridor. Japan’s sanctions regime allows for exceptions, and this month’s Games have opened a narrow but significant door.
A rare scene on Japanese soil
The contrast was striking. On paper, North Korean nationals are not allowed in. At Osaka airport, a large, organised group of supporters belted out songs, waved national flags and turned a quiet arrivals hall into a sea of red banners and choreographed cheers.
These were not casual fans. A pro-North Korean organisation in Tokyo has been urging residents to show up in numbers, to fill stands and create a home atmosphere for the visiting teams. Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean publication based in Japan, released a video featuring students from Korea University demonstrating how to cheer at the Games.
In the clip, smiling students walk viewers through chants and songs, almost like a rehearsal for the terraces. Their message is simple: wear North Korea’s red, turn out in force, make noise.
The men’s footballers have already felt that backing on arrival. The women, due in Japan on Friday evening, can expect the same treatment when they touch down. They come with a reputation forged at youth tournaments, where North Korean teams have regularly cut through the field with a mix of discipline and attacking ambition.
Now they step into a senior competition where the stakes are higher, the spotlight harsher, and the political backdrop impossible to ignore.
Football in the fault lines
The Asian Games have always doubled as a sporting festival and a soft-power battleground. This edition adds another layer. North Korean teams will play under intense scrutiny, not just for their results but for what their presence in Japan represents.
China first for the men. Bangladesh first for the women. South Korea waiting in the group. Every fixture carries its own tension, its own narrative, its own edge.
For the players in those immaculate white blazers, though, the immediate task is simpler: step off the bus, pull on the shirt, and turn that orchestrated welcome into performances that justify the noise.
