I think Kim was too cautious. I always feel he has no game plan. He should have played with either Ju Yingzhi or Lam Kar-Wai earlier in the second half, not so late in the match when Ju Yingzhi couldn't make much of a difference. North Korea was surprisingly struggling with their stamina late in the second half but Kim did more or less nothing until it was too late. When we had a free kick outside the area, there was no player on the field who could really hope to score from it.
Pakistani defender Zesh Rehman will return to Hong Kong in the 2017-18 season with KC Southern District.
Kim satisfied only with a draw so that the HKFA can't blame on and fire him, but the Hong Kong team needs a WIN against North Korea at home if we really want to qualify.
https://www.upower.com.hk/article/67566-rf富力擬主場賽事內地上演-港超球會提出答允條件 It appears that R&F has officially applied to play its home matches at Yanzigang Stadium in Ghangzhou next season. The other nine clubs appear to be ready to accept this arrangement as R&F will cover hotel, training, travel and accommodation for visiting teams at their own expense. In exchange, they will be allowed to sign up to six foreign players like every other HKPL club. Thy are rumoured to be after Eastern's Roberto and Giovane as well as Rangers' Chow Cheuk Fung. It further states that Korean defender Jo Tae-keun, who has been playing in Thailand since 2013, has signed with an HKPL club but it is not known who that club may be.
The reports I read said R&F Guangzhou can register 3 foreign players and play 2 at the same time. All expenses to Yanzigang Stadium, including insurance and visa fees, must be borne by R&F Guangzhou. Basically the HKPL clubs do not want any expense on their part for the away game to Guangzhou. Eastern convener Peter Leung said R&F are paying six figure sums to lure the top players away from his club. He said his club cannot compete with that kind of financial power.
He also said that they're negotiating the transfer fee for Roberto so it looks like that one is going to happen. I think that what will hurt them the most is that both him and Giovane are local players whose quality will be difficult to replace. Can't be too upset about R&F willing to pay more for players given that the players in HK make so little. However, it is ironic that a mainland investor is paying inflated prices for properties and heating up the market. I can't seem to think of any other examples where this is happening in HK...
http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/realtime/sports/20170619/56846293 In other news, it's becoming clear what the extent of South China's plans are. They've fired almost everyone in the football department and made plans to repurpose the players' rooms in the SCAA building. It looks like they are cleaning house, with no definitive plans to get back to the top flight any time soon.
http://www.tnp.sg/sports/singapore-football/viterale-super-sub Antoine Viterale, born in Hong Kong and attended Kitchee's youth academy, scored his first goal for his Singapore club Hougang United in the Singapore Cup. Viterale previously played in Italy before signing for Hougang United. He is 21 years old and qualifies to play for Hong Kong. I really think Kim Pan-Gon should call him up to train with the Hong Kong U22 team, who are preparing for the Asian U23 Championship qualifiers that are coming up in August.
Does he have a HK passport? If he doesn't, it could be quite hard for him to acquire one and become eligible for selection as I haven't seen anything in his biography that suggests he is a Chinese national or has ROA.
Highlights of the match in which Antoine Viterale scored the winning goal. On his facebook page he said he is an Italian & French passport holder, Hong Kong permanent resident. Since he was born in Hong Kong and lived here for 14 years, I am sure he can apply for HK SAR passport. Andy Nagelain was born here and he qualified to play for Hong Kong without even having lived here. Also if he is only playing for the U22 Hong Kong side, the requirements may not be as strict.
Kim Pan-Gon is training the HK U22 national team. He is very unhappy about R&F Guangzhou being allowed to compete in the HKPL and sign foreigners. He said R&F Guangzhou is making zero contribution to the development of HK football.
Even though Kim had already made his preliminary list last month, I think he could be called up as a late addition if he needs further options to bolster his team. If he does not make it in, then I think he could be considered for next year's Asian Games football tournament or if they do qualify for next year's AFC U23 Championship (which I do think the team has a pretty good chance of qualifying depending if the results go their way.) But, I do think that Kim Pan-Gon should keep a close eye on him.
In that case then all he needs is a valid HKID and he could apply for a passport at any time. Nagelain was born in HK and his mom was, I assume, a Chinese national which would make him a Chinese national by birth. Since he never renounced his Chinese nationality, he remained eligible for ROA and a HK passport, based on my understanding of the law. In that case, they should also look at Ryo Fujii who is currently playing for LA Galaxy II. He is a midfielder, born in Hong Kong, moved to California when he was young, plays as a regular starter at (arguably) a higher level than every player on the preliminary squad.
If Viterale plans to develop his career in Asia then he should get himself a HKSAR passport, then he can qualify as an AFC player and not take up the foreign player quota in an Asian club. Kim should call him up, the coach and the player can find out more about each other, before deciding what to do next. Ryo Fujii may has higher ambitions than playing for Hong Kong? He could be on the radar of the Japanese or American national youth teams?
Japan? No chance he's on their radar. U.S.? Doubtful. He has never been called up to any national team youth camps. The question as to his ambitions are probably why he would decline, even if he were offered the chance to be a starter for the Hong Kong U-22's. All things being equal, he probably feels the strongest connection to America, second strongest to Japan, and weakest towards Hong Kong. Although playing for Hong Kong at the youth level would not make him ineligible to play for the U.S. at the senior level, it's hard to convince someone who has so little connection to HK to fly 10 hours for a youth tournament. The only thing that might entice him perhaps is the opportunity to play international football at some level as it's not likely that will happen with Japan or the U.S..
Here is the final squad of the U-22 representative team who are participating in the KBZ Bank Cup 2017: Goalkeepers TSE Ka Wing, WONG Tsz Chung, YUEN Ho Chun. Defenders CHAN Kong Pan, LAU Hok Ming, LAW Chun Ting, LAW Tsz Chun, TSE Long Hin, TSUI Wang Kit, YIU Ho Ming, YU Pui Hong. Midfielders LAI Hau Hei, LAI Lok Yin, Jordan LAM Lok Kan, LEUNG Sing Yu, SIU Chun Ming, TAN Chun Lok, WONG Chun Hin, WU Chun Ming. Forwards CHENG Siu Kwan, CHUNG Wai Keung, LAI Kak Yi, LAW Hiu Chung. https://www.hkfa.com/en/
By the way, the Kai Tak Sports Hub project funding has been approved. They will invite tenders soon. The project is targeted to finish construction by 2023.
R&F Guangzhou announced that they have signed 4 young players to play in the HK reserves league. They will work with Chiu Jun Kit's company "Freeman" to develop young players. R&F Guangzhou also announced that they have signed Mirko Teodorović, Giovane and Roberto from Eastern Longlions for the new season. They plan to spend $20 million in the 2017-18 season and hope to close up the gap between themselves and the rest of the league. Huang Sheng-Hua, R&F Guangzhou's Deputy Director said he expects the CSL to relax the foreigners rule on Hong Kong (probably also Macau and Taiwan) players very soon, meaning HK players will not be considered foreigners in the CSL.
http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/sport/20170627/00286_004.html Rangers signed five new players as well: Chuck Yiu Kwok, Lai Lok Yin, Lau Cheuk Hin, and Igor Miovic. But the one I'm most interested in is Walter Soares Belitardo Jr, scorer of 31 goals last season with Tung Sing.
The Standard Kwok Kin-Pong, Michael Cheng, Lee Wai-Lim, Chan Pak-Hang and Lee Ka-Ho Five footballers charged with match-fixing Five former Hong Kong Pegasus FC players, including former star Lee Wai- lim and Pegasus captain Kwok Kin- pong, were yesterday charged by the Independent Commission Against Corruption with bribery and fraud linked to match-fixing. Lee, 36, Kwok, 30, Michael Cheng Lai-hin, 31, Chan Pak-hang, 24, and Lee Ka-ho, 24, face seven charges for allegedly offering and accepting bribes of HK$60,000 and fraud by contriving to fix results of three Reserve Division matches organized by the Hong Kong Football Association last year. The five also face a joint charge of conspiracy to defraud. Kwok and Cheng are said to have conspired together and with unknown persons to defraud Pegasus and the HKFA by fixing or attempting to fix the result of a match between Pegasus and Yuen Long FC on February 24 last year. Cheng was also charged with offering HK$10,000 to a Pegasus player to help fix the result. Cheng allegedly conspired with Chan, the Lees and a Biu Chun Rangers FC player to defraud Pegasus and the HKFA by trying to fix the result of a match between Pegasus and Rangers on March 23 last year. Chan was charged with offering HK$10,000 to a Pegasus player to fix the match. The two Lees each allegedly accepted HK$20,000 from Cheng in March last year as a reward for contriving to fix match results. Cheng and Lee Wai-lim are accused of conspiring with Chan and a Biu Chun Rangers player to defraud Pegasus and the HKFA by working to fix the result of a match between Pegasus and Rangers on April 13 last year. Cheng and Chan face a charge of offering an advantage to an agent, while Lee Wai-lim and Lee Ka-ho each face one charge of being agents who accepted an advantage. The five were arrested in October last year and will appear in the West Kowloon Magistracy tomorrow in preparation for transferring the case to the District Court. Lee Wai-lim, known as "Prince William," was selected as Hong Kong's top player in 2009. He joined Pegasus and worked as an assistant coach in July 2015 and also played for two other clubs, Tai Po FC and South China Athletic Association. Lee was in the Hong Kong representative team that beat Guangdong in the 2009 Guangdong-Hong Kong Cup, scoring a goal and providing two assists. Cheng and Kwok represented Hong Kong while Chan and Lee Ka-ho were in the Hong Kong Olympic team. Pegasus voiced regret that the ICAC had needed to move on charges against the five, who all left the club last year. But the club declared that it would not be weakened by what allegedly occurred. In fact, Pegasus has now adopted a "zero-tolerance attitude" toward any player who is believed to have behaved illegally in any match.
Former Man Utd players Philip Neville, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes are visiting Hong Kong from today until tomorrow. Nicky Butt should be able to show his former teammates around since he spent 6 months here playing for South China.
http://www.scmp.com/sport/hong-kong...kwards-how-hong-kong-soccer-has-struggled-its A report on Hong Kong soccer after it has been excluded from the Sports Institute. They keep saying the clubs don't benefit from the government funding. But I want to ask why must privately owned and run football clubs get government money? If that is the case then everyone will be owning and running football clubs. The government money has helped to improve our national teams welfare and nobody talks about that. When those football clubs have money and influence, they did nothing for the future. None of them ever bothered to try to produce their own training centre. All they know is milk the cow. Only Kitchee and its convenor Ken Ng got a training centre together. Steven Lo also got HKJC to invest money into redeveloping South China's football field before he left. The rest did nothing except complain. TKO Football Training Centre is now near completion. That's a huge asset that will benefit HK soccer for years to come. Nobody talks about that. They just want money for themselves.
Careful with that one though. Many years after funding was promised, the "field" still looks like this: