North Korea briefly refuse to play and leave pitch in bizarre incident vs China

North Korea's women's team launched a furious protest towards the match officials after an incident in their Women's Asian Cup match against China.

While the North Korea men's team has relatively little standing on the international stage, their women's team are one of the top-ranked sides in world football.

They have won the Asian Cup on three occasions - though not since 2008 - and also reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 2007.

Given the tight restrictions placed on information coming out of North Korea, little is known about the players themselves, except for the fact that many of them play for the nation's top club side, April 25.

North Korea places a significant amount of emphasis on football at youth levels, and every member of their Asian Cup squad is believed to be under the age of 30.

At the Asian Cup, which is being played in Australia, they defeated Uzbekistan 3-0 in their opening match before thrashing Bangladesh 5-0.

North Korea players celebrate during their 3-0 win over Uzbekistan (Image: Getty)

Their third group match was scheduled to be against China, who are another of Asia's powerhouses in women's football.

In the fourth minute of additional time in the first half, China put the ball in the back of the net, with Zhang Chengxue getting on the end of a free-kick before crossing for Wang Shuang to tap home.

However, the assistant referee held her flag up for offside.

VAR checked the incident and eventually allowed the goal to stand.

Video replays showed that there while one player was offside in the build-up, Zhang's body was in line with the last North Korea defender and was therefore onside.

Zhang Chengxue was adjudged onside by VAR (Image: AFC)

North Korea were left furious with the decision, with the players walking over to the fourth official to protest.

Those complaints lasted for around three minutes, before the referee decided not to play the remainder of additional time in the first half and blew her whistle early.

Despite reportedly refusing to return to the pitch during the protest, as per various Australian outlets, play did resume as normal in the second half, with China holding on to win the game 2-1.

VAR played a role with 10 minutes to play, as Choe Il-son thought she had equalised for North Korea only for the video technology to rule it out.

That means they top Group B with a maximum of nine points from their three games, with North Korea also through to the quarter-finals in second.

North Korea will take on Australia in Perth on March 13, while China will take on the runner-up of Group C - currently set to be Chinese Taipei - a day later.