North Korea is storming ahead in the world of women’s football and is currently ranked ninth in the world, higher than both Brazil and Australia. This may come as a positive surprise; however, beneath the surface, their push for success is largely driven to strengthen their political agenda.
Women’s football has become North Korea’s ‘secret sporting weapon’. This has been clear since Kim Jong Un’s reaction to North Korea, also known as the DPRK, winning the 2015 East Asian Football Federation’s top prize for the women’s team. In an exercise of control, the North Korean leader claimed the victory as his own, describing it as an “offence strategy that our party develops.” Even the women’s team nickname ‘Cheollima’, is a major weapon of North Korean politics. The meaning of a mythical horse able to cover 400 km per day is that it is used as a way of urging citizens to make huge efforts of self-sacrifice.
The Kims’ investment in women’s football began in the 1980s. Pyongyang, the country’s capital, boasts a huge women’s football academy that scouts young talent and employs intensive technique-based military-style drills as training. The players are known internationally for their aggressiveness, physical style of play, and technical discipline. The training these youth players go through reflects the intensive military ideals enforced on citizens by Kim Jong Un as part of the country’s strict regime.
Sporting losses go largely unreported in North Korea, and wins are branded as a tool to present the regime as strong and effective, keeping internal opposition to the system at bay. In their intense bid to only bring home gold, the DPRK went to great lengths to cover up failed steroid tests in 2011, which resulted in the women’s team being banned from the 2015 World Cup. In keeping with the country’s extraordinary political headlines, they claimed these players had been struck by lightning. The positive result, they suggested, must have been created by the treatment these players received as a result of this, which contained deer musk gland medicine. In North Korean society, sexism remains deeply entrenched, despite claims that it has been eliminated. Even though most of their medals at September 2023’s Asian Cup were won by women, it was their sole male gold medalist who lifted the flag at the Closing Ceremony.
Football has also long been used as another form of rivalry between North and South Korea. The DPRK has a lower success rate when it comes to men’s football, with South Korea winning seven of the neighbours’ 17 games. North Korea, however, has the upper hand in the women’s game, having won a total of 16 out of their 20 matches.
The future of women’s football looks bright for North Korea, with their 2023 record boasting 10 wins out of their 12 games played. This only adds to the high regard and acclaim for their collection of trophies, which includes three Asian Cups, three East Asian Championships and three Asian Games to date. After an impressive Olympics campaign, the DPRK only narrowly missed out on a spot in Paris this summer, losing 1-2 to Japan in the final leg of the Asia Qualifications. It is clear that North Korea’s team is playing at the top level and will continue to climb the ranks of women’s football, albeit with ulterior political motives as their chief driving force.
“North Korea is best Korea” by michael-day is licensed under CC BY 2.0