For several decades since late-1940s, we were dubbed 'the Football Kingdom of Asia'. We used to produce great footballers. We even supplied footballers to Chinese Taipei (using the name 'Republic of China') and won the Asian Games gold medal twice in late 1950s. We were the first region in Asia to establish a professional league. The first chairman and secretary-general of the Asian Football Confederation both came from Hong Kong. We hosted the first edition of the Asian Cup Finals in 1956 and and Hong Kong were second runners-up in the tournament.

We produced several generations of footballers with excellent skills on the ball. We also had some very good expatriate players, some of them being former internationals. To name some, Lee Wai-tong, Mok Chun-wah, Ko Po-keung, Yiu Cheuk-yin, Ho Cheung-yau, Wong Man-wai, Cheung Chi-toi, Cheung Chi-wai, Wu Kwok-hung, Chung Chor-wai, Wan Chi-keung, Leung Nang-yan, Currie, Lau Wing-yip, Leung Shui-wing, Hutchison, Cheung Chi-tak, Ku Kam-fai, Tim Bredbury, Chan Fat-chi, Leslie Santos, Dale Tempest, Ross Greer, Wu Qunli, Anton Grabo, Lee Kin-wo, Cristiano Cordeiro....

Full Houses were not rare. The Government Stadium (later renamed Hong Kong Stadium), Fa Hui Stadium (near the present-day Mongkok Stadium) and Army Stadium were often packed with fans. There were cup competitions sponsored by companies, such as the Viceroy Cup, which offered lucrative prize money. Big enterprises sponsored teams or even formed teams themselves to play in the first division. We had powerhouses such as SCAA, KMB, Rangers, Kitchee, Jardine, Seiko, and Bulova. Big games such as SCAA vs KMB (1950-60s), Seiko vs Bulova (late-1970s - early-1980s), Seiko vs SCAA (early-1980s), SCAA vs Happy Valley (late-1980s) were hot talk in the city, and football fans had to scramble for tickets. Those who could not get tickets climbed up the nearby hill-slopes in an attempt to watch the games.

There were several magazines exclusively covering Hong Kong football which sold well. Some newspapers, such as the Hong Kong Times and Sing Tao Evening News, were very famous for their in-depth coverage of Hong Kong football. There were extensive game reports, analyses, news, pundit columns and gossips.

Football broadcasts were popular programmes for radio stations such RTHK and the Commercial Radio. There were some very famous radio football commentators, such as Yip Kwun-chip, Lam Sheung-yi, Ho Kam-kong, Ho Ching-kong, Lai Yu-ching, Ng Fong-wing, Choi Man-kin and Lee Tak-nang. In 1980s, TVB showed football games live on TV once every four to eight weeks.

The Hong Kong national teams in the 1970s and 1980s were very strong. Hong Kong used to be a strong opponent to other teams such as South Korea and Japan. In 1985 Hong Kong pulled off one of the biggest upsets in history, by beating China 2-1 in Beijing in a qualifier for the World Cup 1986.

Here is an account of how gloomy Hong Kong football has become.

For several seasons we have only had an average attendance of about 1,500 - 2,000 (1/10 of the figure in early-1990s). Games are seldom held in the Hong Kong Stadium, because it is uneconomical to use a 40,000-seater stadium for games that 2000 people may watch. Most games are held in the outdated Mongkok Stadium. The highest attendance last season was the game involving SCAA's last game of the season (fighting against relegation), attracting 3,000.

Teams, in particular those supported by commercial sponsorships, withdrew from the league one after another, such as Golden, Ernest Borel, Instant Dict, Sing Tao and Yee Hope. Some famous teams that enjoyed a glorious past, such as Eastern and Tung Sing, prefer to languish in the amateurish lower divisions because it is cheaper for them to operate. Because not many companies are willing to sponsor the cup competitions, the prize money offered to the winners are often little, which is unable to cover the club expenses for one single month.

In some seasons HKFA has had difficulty in finding sufficient numbers of teams. In some seasons there has only been eight teams and in one particular season there were only seven teams. To save operation costs, all fixtures were arranged to be played on Saturdays and Sundays as doubleheaders (2 pm and 4 pm). As a result there is no time for the reserve league fixtures as curtain-raisers.

The income of players has shrunk, this is the case for almost all players no matter whether they are veterans, young players, locals or expatriates. Most players have to engage in other part-time jobs such as driving taxis or labour work. Some others worked for the media as TV pundits, children football coaches or football-betting guide writers. Many young players only earn a sum covering their transport costs.

We currently do not have any footballers in the younger generation that possess the 'star quality' of players from past generations. Veterans such as Lee Kin Wo, Cristiano Cordeiro and Cheung Sai-ho are still playing, and many pundits think they still play better than the youngsters. Some of the novice mainland players have even worse skills than the local players. In season 2005/06, our Footballer of the Year was Au Wai-lun, who is nearly 40 and already in the twilight in his career. And he was captain of the SCAA team which played badly throughout the year.

Now there is no live radio broadcast of games. Commercial Radio stopped broadcasting live football programmes in the late 1980s and similarly RTHK stopped broadcasting them in the late 1990s as the government considered it was not commercially viable. The same for TV. TVB's regular football programme on Sunday morning 'Football Fan's World' was scrapped and merged into another sports programme called 'Sports World'.

In our local newspapers we still have the sports section - better to call it the 'football betting section'. Information about football betting dominates the section, with all the text centred around the idea of how to win money. These papers do not cover any news related to the teams (foreign teams, of course) they are talking about, unless it is related to betting. Local football news is given a very low priority within the newspapers. Prior to this season, some news were covered with some 2'' x 3'' short columns containing less than 100 words. Needless to say, there is no longer a market for magazines concentrating on local football.

The Hong Kong national team is now considered as one of the minnows of the region. Sometimes it cannot even beat the likes of Nepal or Bangladesh. This is not to mention teams like Thailand and Singapore who were considered much inferior to Hong Kong in the past. In 2004, the Hong Kong team was humiliated 0-7 by China in a World Cup 2006 qualifier played in Guangzhou.

Click the following links for some game clips at the Hong Kong Stadium and Mongkok Stadium this season. These two games were the games featuring the more popular teams in the league.

League Cup semi-final: SCAA vs Kitchee (10/03/2007, Hong Kong Stadium)

The Past and The Present

The Diagnosis - What Caused the Decline?

The Cure - How to Revive Hong Kong Football?

Resurgence in Sight?

Watch What Insiders Have to Say

Some Reports and Analyses from Local Papers

What is Your View?

Links and Resources

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