North Korean leader Kim Jong-un personally received the country’s AFC Women’s Champions League winners in Pyongyang earlier this week, embracing the players and posing for photographs with them as they wept with joy and leapt in celebration.
Naegohyang Women’s FC clinched Asia’s top club title with a 1-0 defeat of Tokyo Verdy Beleza of Japan in the final in Suwon on May 23, becoming the first North Korean side to win the AFC Women’s Champions League.
Kim congratulated the players on their historic achievement, state media reported, and also watched a friendly between Naegohyang and the under-17 women’s national side.
Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, hailed the squad as “proud daughters of the motherland who once again powerfully displayed the spirit and mettle of the Korean people with back-to-back victories in the semi-finals and final”.
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Members of the public and dozens of ruling party officials attended the reception, cheering and waving miniature national flags, footage from digital broadcaster APT News showed.
Naegohyang are reported to have earned US$1 million in prize money, though whether the club will receive it remains uncertain given the UN sanctions in place over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.
The championship run required Naegohyang to compete in South Korea, marking the first time North Korean footballers had travelled to the neighbouring country since the 2014 Incheon Asian Games.