It has been revealed that North Korea broadcasted the English Premier League (PL) match. Since there was no official broadcasting rights negotiation, it is expected to be an illegal broadcast.

On the 10th (Korean time), a website specializing in North Korea-related analysis, ‘38 North’, revealed the fact that North Korea recently broadcasted a PL match under the title, “The Mystery of North Korea’s ‘Korean Central TV’ Broadcasting International Soccer.” This report utilized the North Korean broadcast archive received by the website via satellite from April 2022 to January 2025 and the South Korean Ministry of Unification database.

It is relatively recent that North Korea has been paying serious attention to sports broadcasting. Since the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that hit in the early 2020s, the daily broadcast output time of broadcasting stations increased from 8 hours to 14 hours, and sports broadcasting naturally increased. According to the report, sports broadcasting has increased by at least 1 hour.

North Korea, which broadcasted all of the matches of the five major European leagues in 2022, has been focusing only on the PL since 2023. Manchester United of the PL is known as Kim Jong-un's favorite team. It also broadcasts world-class competitions such as the UEFA Champions League (UCL) and the FIFA World Cup.

Of course, it is not broadcast live. The opening match of the 2024-2025 PL between Ipswich Town and Liverpool, held in August 2024, was broadcast in North Korea on January 13 this year. Even that was an edited 60-minute video, not a 90-minute one. Delayed broadcasting is natural in North Korea. Among the matches of last season, the match between Arsenal and Manchester City on October 8, 2023, was first broadcast in North Korea eight months later, on June 12, 2024. The 2023-2024 season had already ended.

It is questionable how North Korea can broadcast international football matches. The World Cup can be secured through the Asian Broadcasting Union, but the broadcasting rights for the PL or UCL are not registered in North Korea. '38 North' observed that North Korea's soccer broadcast could be the result of negotiations with an organization conducting backroom diplomacy. In relation to this, the British daily newspaper 'The Guardian' predicted that this would be illegal, saying, "It is almost a clear copyright infringement. North Korea does not have the rights to broadcast PL matches."