Hong Kong Football Thread (R)

The Hong Kong FA can't even decide if the opening game between South China and Citizen will happen during the day or in the evening.

Two teams relegated... haha... that does not happen. Only Division 1 is professional, Division 2 and below are all amateurs. With almost zero prize money or TV income, where are the Division 2 teams going to find the millions required to turn pro? Some Division 2 winners don't even want to actually move up. So many times the FA invited the relegated teams to stay.

The HK First Division is among the lowest level in terms of organization.

 

I am not sure about the part where "AFC want to see do well so they can play i Champions League". But HK League is surely very funny. By the way, Army and Police are no longer playing in Division 1 today.

Yes, our local NOW TV paid billions for the rights of English Premier League, because it is hugely popular over here. But few people give a damn about the local league.

South China has the biggest fan base, on avearge they bring in 2,000+ fans. The rest are quite hopeless except maybe Tai Po FC, who will play at home from this season and can expect more spectators.

There are really no home/away in HK because the government wants every game to be played in Mongkok. (HK Stadium is used like the way England uses Wembley.) That way they don't have to pay for the refurbishments of other grounds and save costs. So for the fans all the teams apart from South China and Tai Po are basically the same and do not represent anything meaningful.

It will take a revolution to change the entire football system to be more conventional.

 

Exactly, they play every game in Mongkok except the opener. Mongkok hosts 100 games or so per season (8 months or so)... surprisingly the grass there is always green.

Even after taking in sponsorship money, the HKFA won't pay to turn the giant TV screen on at HK Stadium for the opening game, because they think South China AA will want it and in the end SCAA will pay to turn it on. I guess it is fair business decision but not very nice.

By the way, TSW Pegasus, supposed to be based in Yuen Long, will get to play a home game because South China AA agreed to go and play them there. The HKFA has previously rejected the idea because Yuen Long grass there is not up to standard... when the whole stadium is under refurbishment!

 

News about the National Team ?

 

There is no news about the national team. It is set to play the 2011 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers in January 2009, yet no plans for the team has been announced, except that a League XI with almost no HK players will play in the Chinese New Year Cup in HK, so that the national team can concentrate on the qualifiers.

We want to see some friendly games for the HK Team this autumn, so they can prepare better, but so far no plans have been announced by HKFA.

 

The league began on Saturday. Heavyweight South China could only manage a 1-1 draw with Citizen. Goal by Detinho. About 2,500 attended the game at the 40,000 capacity HK Stadium. I guess live TV broadcast and possible bad weather has a lot to do with it.

This afternoon Happy Valley and Eastern AA played to a 0-0 draw; then newcomer TSW Pegasus lost 0-1 to another powerhouse Kitchee. 2,700 or so attended. Today is also HK's legislative council election day, not sure if it affected attendance though.

 

I saw the South China vs Citizen game on TV. South China played poorly, there was simply no organization, they kept sending high balls into the box hoping that Tales Schutz, Chan Siu Ki or Detinho would get one in and Detinho did in the end.

TSW Pegasus is said to have played very well against Kitchee and had penalty claims turned down. They were unlucky to lose. They will play Convoy Sunhei in their next game.

Tai Po FC will play tomorrow and again this Saturday. Tai Po will be playing at their home ground on Sat and it is great to see. HK league really need to turn into a true home/away format.

 

It is great to see someone with so many suggestions for our league.

The teams that play in HK, with the exception of Tai Po, TSW Pegasus and Tuen Mun Progoal maybe, have no district connections and they claim to want to capture all HK football fans. This thinking is a legacy from the 50s and 60s when HK football was hugely popular locally and the 25,000 government stadium (now HK stadium) would sell out in a heartbeat.

The FA tried to force teams to play at local sports grounds before, but one of the games only attracted a "crowd" of 28 people. So they abandoned the idea. Basically, teams cannot be forced into becoming district teams. They have to want to do it and then try to promote themselves locally.

Mongkok stadium will be renovated next year, but the government will actually reduce its capacity to 6,000 from the current 8,500. They claim HK league does not require a bigger stadium according to recent attendance figures.

Actually there are good grounds all over HK which can be used. Tai Po is one. Siu Sai Wan has a capacity of 12,000 and is fully covered. Yuen Long needs work but it has a capacity of 5,000 and the district is football mad. Shatin has a ground with 5,000 capacity and the district team is strong and it is on the way up. Kowloon Bay, Aberdeen..etc. have also been mentioned. Tseung Kwan O Sports Ground will be ready next year. It is built for East Asian Games and it will have very good facilities, only problem is that its capacity is only 3,500, expandable to 5,000.

Your idea of Supporters Shield etc is very interesting. I imagine we can always make up something to suit our local fans. I guess we can create a New Territories Cup for Tai Po, Tuen Mun Progoal and TSW Pegasus to win.

Hong Kong has lots of money, but most of that money is spend on English Premier League. NOW TV paid billions for the broadcasting rights and every week billions are bet on the games through HK Jockey Club.

HK Jockey Club took in all this gambling cash and have so far invested $0 into HK football. They said they would build training grounds for HKFA, but so far nothing has materialised. I sent an email to ask HKJC about it and for two weeks nobody replied.

For the HK government to support local football, there must be a reason. They built all the superb Equestrian facilities because we are hosting the Olympics and Paralympics, otherwise our Equestrian facilities would not have been up to much. Therefore I hope HKFA will try to secure the rights to host a football tournament, like AFC Youth Cup or AFC U17 Cup etc. That will give the government the reason to improve all the football grounds in HK. HK teams always complain that they don't have good grounds to train on.

 

We just had this stupid Xiangxue team asking to host their games in a small park in Shenzhen. The HKFA people went to see it and were disgusted by what they saw on offer. They will now move Xiangxue's games to Mongkok and maybe Siu Sai Wan Sports Ground.

You would have thought that HKFA would check all the teams' stadiums before planning games at them. No, not this FA. They go by a very old rule book which should be burned and a new one written in its place.

NTR Wofoo Tai Po beat Tune Mun Progoal 3-0 last night. Mutual and Chengdu Blades drew 0-0.

 

Well, playing on a weekday is surely a problem. But really nobody knows anything about Sheffield United except the team name, plus the fact that they are sending their youth team to the HK league for training. They are not marketing themselves in HK. Nobody really understands why HKFA allowed them to join, except they are paying HKFA money.

I suggest Sheffield Utd and Xiangxue Eisiti play at Siu Sai Wan or other sports ground for free to attract fans in other districts. They don't care about gate receipts anyway. (Xiangxue once said they would play in Shenzhen and open the gates to all fans for free. Turned out they were planning to play at a very lousy sports ground.)

I don't know why their is a lack of goals, I suppose it is early in the season and the teams have yet to gel.

 

By the way, I got a reply from HKJC:

"Being the Hong Kong's premier provider of sporting entertainment, we are strongly committed to the development of all types of sports, including local football and other long-term sports development projects in the community. For instance, we have already committed a fund of over HK$100 million to set up a new Football Academy in Tseung Kwan O."

We are still waiting for the Football Academy to materialize...

 

HKJC and HKFA will always give you a standard reply. They receive govt funding or special permit to operate, they must reply to all enquiries from the public.

 

Two league games yesterday, Tai Po FC played at home against Sheffield United and won 2:1. 1,135 fans attended the game. Reportedly great atmosphere. Way to go Tai Po!

Eastern AA played at Mongkok against Xiangxue Eisiti and only 157 fans came! Maybe because it clashed with the live broadcast of Man Utd vs Liverpool. Eastern won 1:0.

 

TSW Pegasus is becoming one of the more popular teams in the league already. I guess people are very emotional about helping out the much troubled Tin Shui Wai district, and are very glad to see they have a good football team.

I bet their home game on 5 October against 'sister team' South China AA will be a sell out. (Yuen Long Stadium can seat 5,000 people.)