Aired key match footage of about 5 minutes without broadcasting rights

Omitted South Korea, US and Japan matches but showed Hyundai Motor ads

Stopped transmissions after overseas outlets flagged piracy

Allegations emerged that North Korea was broadcasting 2026 World Cup matches without authorization. [Captured from Alerta Mundial's X account]
Allegations emerged that North Korea was broadcasting 2026 World Cup matches without authorization. [Captured from Alerta Mundial's X account]

North Korea abruptly halted its World Cup broadcasts after being accused of airing match footage from the 2026 FIFA World Cup without holding broadcasting rights.

North Korea does not appear on FIFA's list of authorized media rights holders for the tournament, Yonhap News Agency reported Sunday.

The country had been included on the equivalent list for the 2022 Qatar World Cup and had broadcast matches at that time, but was excluded for this edition — meaning North Korean residents are unable to watch the tournament.

State media outlets including KCNA, the Rodong Sinmun and Korean Central Television all reported the tournament's opening on June 14, two days after it kicked off in the early hours of June 12, Korean Standard Time. Since then, Korean Central Television has reported only match results without live coverage.

Suspicions of unauthorized transmission arose because Korean Central Television was airing extended highlight clips of key match moments — without broadcasting rights — while reporting those results.

Foreign football news outlet Alerta Mundial said June 18 via X that North Korea appeared to be illegally retransmitting World Cup matches, likely by intercepting satellite signals from neighboring countries such as China.

According to a recent report by US online outlet Front Office Sports, broadcasters without rights may use match highlight footage only in regular news programs that air at least five days a week, with clips limited to 30 seconds per match and 90 seconds for sports news segments. The total match footage allowed per single news broadcast may not exceed two minutes.

Korean Central Television aired edited highlight packages of about five minutes per match, lending weight to the unauthorized retransmission allegations. The channel broadcast World Cup coverage in this manner daily from June 15 through June 18 before stopping June 19, after the piracy allegations surfaced.

North Korea, which struggles to afford the steep rights fees for major sporting events such as the World Cup and the Olympics, received support from South Korean rights holders from the 2014 Russia World Cup through the 2022 Qatar tournament.

Under that arrangement, South Korean terrestrial broadcasters — which held rights for the entire Korean Peninsula under their FIFA contracts — would return North Korea's portion of those rights to FIFA on humanitarian grounds, and FIFA would then provide the broadcast feed to North Korea free of charge.

North Korea's exclusion from this tournament's rights arrangement appears to stem from its unauthorized broadcast of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Meanwhile, North Korean broadcasts omitted coverage of matches involving South Korea, the United States and Japan, yet still aired advertising boards for South Korean and American sponsors including Hyundai Motor, Coca-Cola and McDonald's.

During the 2022 Qatar World Cup and other past major sporting events, North Korea had blurred out Hyundai Motor and Coca-Cola advertising boards and digitally grayed over South Korean flags displayed in the stands.


anju1015@heraldcorp.com