How Does Football Work in North Korea?

North Korea, the Hermit Kingdom, one of the most isolated and secretive countries in the world. But how does their football league work? In this video I try to find out about the beautiful game north of the 38th parallel!

[MatthiaHater]

You can say what you want about the North Korean human rights record, but sparing their citizens from ever watching Tottenham play is admirable

[artemmakarevitch]

No shirt sponsors, just vibes. Might start supporting 4.25

[jonthompson]

I'm the physio for the Guam Men's National Team and we were supposed to play DPRK in the Preliminary rounds of East Asian Football Federation tournament in December. About a month before we were supposed to leave they backed out of the competition entirely with no explanation. Couple of theories popped up with the two most likely being that they were worried about losing to lower ranked teams (we were ranked 205 at the time and Macau being in the 190s) or they did not have enough players due to it being about the same time that DPRK sent troops to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We never got a full answer but it was definitely weird for them to drop out so late with a relatively easy draw.

[rodrigorodriguesdelgado.]

Talk about the time that a Brazilian team played aganst North Korea in pyongyang stadium.

[mfsemp]

4.25 also reached the 2019 AFC Cup final

[RandomEdgyGuy]

Glad I stumbled upon your video. I like your calm and collected style (even though it may or may not stem from inexperience in front of the camera, please keep that), genuinely informative and sticking to your topic. No unnecessary sensationalism.

[gregjohnstone]

North Korea womens team is one of the best in the world, above the likes of France, Netherlands, Italy etc

Brazil v North Korea in the men's game would be a crazy mismatch, but in the womens it probably be a very close match that could go either way.

[MetroChile]

outstanding vid, Duffy! new fan here. states-based, in N Jersey, tks again! great work!

[pulsedemon]

Thank you for the rather objective video, I can see you have put effort into unbiased researching and presenting. Also pleased you didn’t forget to mention the remarkable success of the women‘s game, something that tends to go under the radar. Definitely coming back to your channel

[tobyboutall]

Gained a bloody follower here. This is the football stuff we need. Not youtubers just picking squads etc. Thank you and I look forward to your future content

[Ultra]

I remember in 2021 North Korean TV was broadcasting Serie A games 👀

[megachris]

Good video about a topic that I'm sure must have been difficult to research. It might be worth having a little investigation about football in 'Africa's North Korea, ' Eritrea. They sometimes have as many as 10 defections when they go to play abroad.

[dmayberry]

A few years ago there were a few foreigners playing in North Korea in a Northern city near to the Chinese border. They were listed in wikipedia. Unfortunately, the data has now been taken down. One of them was definitely Bosnian.

[wheel.]

Hi Duffy, some interesting things to note. I worked on the U17WWC, here are some things that the women’s team could and couldn’t do

They had to be isolated from the hotel, no contact with other people that weren’t either official hotel staff or fifa agents, and the hotel staff were designated priorly.

They had their own training facilities chosen priorly, this was supposed to be in Haina, using the youth setup for Delfines Del Este, the renovations were made but FIFA did not deem it good enough for them, so they trained later than everybody else in the Santiago premises

They had no access to internet, phones and most baffling of all nothing they consumed couldn’t have any brands, no water bottles nothing, truly bizarre.

[charlestruby]

Thank you for putting in the hard work presenting this video.

[jamesgaft]

Interesting video lad. Respect the zenit scarf in the back

[ArnovATW]

What an excellent video pal! Full enjoyed it and top work!

[jameslittle]

Loved this. Awesome vid Duffy mate. All 4.25 fans aren't we?

[mowvu]

8:40 the gulf in class between the top 10 and top 50 nations in the men's game is enormous.
whereas in the women's game they're all terrible up to about 5th.
I'm talking combined counties league level for a women's national team placed around 20th.
harsh but true

[Hanible]

I dunno what it is with Irish people but they show respect to everyone and don't try to belittle other nations. A truly admirable trait that needs to be taught to other westerners!