The Japanese government has warned football fans not to attempt to travel to the "hostile" North Korea for next week's World Cup qualifier in Pyongyang.

Japan's foreign ministry said it "strongly urges the public to refrain" from attending the match on 26 March, which will be the first for either team in North Korea since 2011.

"As you know, North Korea has a hostile attitude towards Japan and travel is not recommended for the general public," it said on X. Japan and North Korea will play in Tokyo on Thursday as part of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, before the return match next week in North Korean territory.

Japan has long advised its citizens not to travel to North Korea, although it has not explicitly banned them from doing so. The two countries have not had diplomatic relations for some time.

It was unclear how many supporters might try to travel, but if they do they will need a North Korean visa. Despite the general advice, 14 government officials will accompany the Japanese team to the game, along with a small number of media, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported..

The first leg of the women's play-off for the Paris Olympics was moved from the North Korean capital to neutral ground in Saudi Arabia last month. Relations have long been strained over issues such as compensation for Japan's brutal occupation of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945, and more recently, by Pyongyang's missile launches over Japanese territory.

The abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s, forced to train spies in Japanese language and customs, has also long been a major point of contention.

The first match to be played on Japanese soil is expected to attract a significant number of North Korean supporters from Japan's long-established ethnic Korean community, estimated at around 300,000.