North Korea v UAE to be held in Riyadh

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has announced that the UAE’s FIFA World Cup qualifier against North Korea will be held at Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium in Riyadh on March 25.

Initially, the match was expected to take place at the Lao National Stadium in Laos, where North Korea has hosted its other "home" games during the third round of Asian qualifying. However, the AFC opted for Saudi Arabia as the venue instead.

While the AFC has not commented on the decision, Laos has faced increased scrutiny in recent months after six tourists died from suspected methanol poisoning at a bar in Vang Vieng.

North Korea has not played a match on home soil since facing South Korea in a 2022 World Cup qualifier in November 2019. That game occurred just one month before the country closed its borders and withdrew from all international competitions for four years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

North Korea only returned to major international competition in September 2023, defeating Taiwan 2-0 at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.

Hopes that North Korea would resume hosting matches in Pyongyang were dashed last year. Their World Cup qualifier against Japan was relocated to a neutral venue just days before kickoff, reportedly due to concerns about bacterial infections in Japan.

The Riyadh match will be the second of two World Cup qualifiers for the UAE this month. The first is against Group A leaders Iran on March 20.

The UAE heads into these crucial fixtures in third place in Group A with 10 points, three behind Uzbekistan, who occupy the second automatic qualification spot for the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.