North Korea has abruptly cancelled its 2026 World Cup qualifying match with Japan next week, leaving organisers frantically searching for an alternative venue.
North Korea reportedly decided it would no longer host the match, which had been scheduled for next Tuesday at the Kim Il-sung Stadium in Pyongyang, a day before the teams met in Tokyo on Thursday in the first of their two Asian qualifying Group B qualifiers.
Minutes after that game, which Japan won 1-0, Kozo Tashima, the president of the Japan Football Association, told reporters that the return match in the North Korean capital would not go ahead.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said the match had been called off due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
“The decision, taken in consultation with Fifa and relevant stakeholders, comes after the AFC was informed on 20 March by the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] Football Association of the need to move the match to a neutral venue due to unavoidable circumstances,” it said in a statement on Friday.
The AFC did not give a reason for the cancellation and said it would be left to the relevant Fifa committees to decide on the fixture’s future.
The Nikkei Asia website said the match had been moved to a yet unannounced neutral venue, while no date has been given for the fixture.
The Kyodo news agency cited unspecified North Korean media reports about a “malignant infectious disease” in Japan, thought to be a reference to a potentially deadly form of group A streptococcal disease, streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS).
Experts in Japan have said cases of STSS will continue to spread, while officials are struggling to identify the cause. The number of cases in 2024 is expected to exceed last year’s record number after the presence of highly virulent and infectious strains were confirmed in Japan.
Japan’s players and staff had planned to arrive in Pyongyang on Monday after training in Beijing, media reports said.
Last month, a qualifying match for the Paris Olympics between the Japanese and North Korean women’s teams was moved from Pyongyang to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the last minute after Japanese football authorities cited difficulties in travelling to North Korea, which has no formal diplomatic relations with Japan.
The return leg of the men’s World Cup qualifier would have been the first international sports event to be held in North Korea since before the coronavirus pandemic. The regime responded to the outbreak by sealing its borders and banning foreign tourists.
North Korea last hosted a men’s soccer international in Pyongyang in 2019 during the qualifying competition for the 2022 World Cup. The country later pulled out of that competition, citing health concerns related to the pandemic.
North Korea is also scheduled to host World Cup qualifiers against Group B’s other two teams, Syria and Myanmar, in June.
