Although it's been nearly 18 months since COVID-19 first broke out in Wuhan, China and quickly spread worldwide, life for many around the world still continues to be stressful and difficult.
The global pandemic has wreaked havoc on businesses, causing cancellations of events, and football has also suffered, with matches and tournaments postponed, stadiums not filled, and even competitions being re-formatted as a result (just at the Champions League, for instance).
National teams haven't been immune to this issue, either. And now, one of them, North Korea, has gone one step further in a bid to try to protect their players.
Not only have they decided to withdraw from this summer's Olympic competition - which was supposed to take place last year - but the DPR Korea Football Association (PRKFA) have now sent another notice to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
According to local reports, on April 30th, the PRKFA requested that the team withdraw from the second round of World Cup 2022 Qualifiers.
Interestingly, the second round, which would see North Korea take on Turkmenistan, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka are being hosted by South Korea. The two sides, namely North Korea, have not had the easiest relationship, and tensions have been rife over the decades - even more so lately.
This was on full display in October 2019 during a World Cup qualifier game that North Korea played against their Southern neighbors, during which they decided to host the game in an empty stadium - despite COVID-19 not being an issue in Korea then - and according to Tottenham star and South Korea's captain Son Heung-min, "The opponents were very rough, and there were moments when very abusive language was exchanged. [To be honest]...it's an accomplishment that we returned from a game like that without [anyone being seriously injured]".
Despite this, South Korea's football organizing body, the Korea Football Association (KFA) have reportedly indicated that the AFC will try to work with North Korea in order to convince them to reverse their decision so everything can proceed smoothly as planned. The AFC have already had to postpone matches before back in March 2020 due to travel restrictions in place throughout Asia as countries attempted to gain control of the pandemic's spread.
If everything goes ahead as planned and gets back on track, the matches featuring North Korea in Group H are expected to take place from May 31 to June 15th.
