North Korean state television broadcasts first ever South Korean football match

North Korean state media broadcast South Korea‘s World Cup campaign for the first time this week.

Local spectators were able to watch their last 16 games on Wednesday, two days after they were played at Stadium 974 in Doha. Brazil Defeated the Republic of Korea (ROK) national team 4-1.

The program even named ROK players at the start of the match; this is unusual considering the country tends not to show any matches played by a South Korean citizen.

Korea Central Television (KCTV) is administered by the state of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).

North Korean state media broadcast South Korea’s World Cup campaign to their audience for the first time this week. Pictured: South Korean players before Monday’s game

The broadcaster showed most of this year’s World Cup matches, but South Korea’s matches weren’t there until Wednesday’s unusual broadcast of Monday’s match.

The channel tends to broadcast international sporting events, which is a rare occasion for citizens who can watch what’s going on in the rest of the world.

The broadcaster has so far shown most of this year’s World Cup matches, but South Korea’s matches weren’t there until Wednesday.

Stimson Center member Martyn Williams said that KCTV is actively showing all other games despite a day or two delay.

It’s certainly no coincidence that the only South Korean game shown left them out of the World Cup.

“It just shows grumpiness, but that’s unfortunately not unusual,” he said. NK News.

Wednesday was an unusual broadcast by KCTV, as domestic viewers could see the uncensored commercials shown at Stadium 974. Pictured: Brazilian Neymar during their last 16 World Cup match against South Korea

KCTV broadcasts international sporting events, a rare occasion where citizens can watch what’s going on in the rest of the world. Pictured: South Korean Paik Seung-ho rejoicing after scoring his team’s opening goal

So far, many South Korean and Japanese football matches have not been shown, including the 2014 and 2018 World Cups.

Also unusual at Monday’s match was that the ads were not censored by the state, meaning that North Korean viewers could see ads for Coca-Cola and other western consumer brands.

According to FIFA, the DPRK is showing a broadcast from South Korean networks whose logos were blurred for the Brazil World Cup in 2014.

At the start of the tournament this year, KCTV blurred the outside broadcaster’s logo and graphics, but no effort has been made to censor them in recent matches.