Many clubs lacked sufficient capital and infrastructure. Hong Kong football is often classified as 'professional', but in reality, it is very amateurish.

For example, most Hong Kong clubs, except SCAA or HKFC, do not have their own clubhouse. They do not have their own training grounds or hostels for the players. They also do not have a well-developed club staff (for example, fitness coaches, physiotherapists and nutritionists).

Unlike their counterparts in the more advanced Asian countries who train at least twice a day, normally teams in Hong Kong can only train once a day due to all sorts of constraints. So the quality of the game is lower than in other places.

For the sustainable development of football, we need to nurture young talents as one day they will be successors to the present generation. In Hong Kong, there is a severe rift in this succession.

We do have some youth football programmes, but it seems like they are a 'leisure activity' rather than a 'professional training'. Although we still have a reserve league, players there are in fact first-team players (i.e. teams do not have enough young reserve players). And many clubs cut down their youth teams due to financial constraints.

So little new blood is coming through the ranks. The setting up of 'HK08' by HKFA is a better-than-nothing action to offer some chances for the youngsters. But it is far from enough. The vitality of the league is already under serious threat.

Hong Kong footballers have no future now. Since the economic downturn in late-1990s, the average wage of professional footballers in Hong Kong decreased sharply.

Many local players have in fact sought for part-time jobs to earn enough income to support their living. Some foreign players are also known to be doing other labour work apart from professional football. Youth players such as those in HK08 receive a very petty sum of 'subsidy' to play, and most of them have other part-time jobs. The players do not have a high social status now as compared with the past. Many of them had to worry their living after their retirement from professional football. The career is without future.

Practices with there supposedly professional team have become a part-time affair. It is impossible to expect these players to have enough strength and skills to play good football.

In the past, Hong Kong league attracted very good expatriate players or players from Mainland China. Some of them were former internationals. These players could raise the standard of the game. Local players could learn a lot from them and improve themselves. Spectators were also attracted to see these skilful expatriate players play in the local games.

In recent years, however, the clubs are unable to spend enough money to recruit good expatriate/mainland players. Some mainland players are inexperienced and lacked the skills to help their teams. Nor can these players attract spectators.

In Hong Kong the number of teams is too few compared with other Asian counterparts. There are only 10 teams (in a certain season, only 7). The number of games is simply not enough for footballers to keep up their playing form. Small clubs like Citizens, Rangers and Wofoo Taipo operate at a very small budget.

Some teams are not competitive at all. For example, HK08 is entirely made of inexperienced teenage players, and the HKFC is an amateur team which fights against relegation perennially. The matches they are involved in are often of poor quality and they seem to be just in the league to make up the numbers rather than to offer valuable competition. They are unable to attract spectators.

The Hong Kong government is allowing the stadiums to decay. The Hong Kong Stadium, in So Kong Po, is seldomly used, as clubs that can attract only 1,000 or 1,500 will lose money if they rent this 40,000-seater stadium for games. The Siu Sai Wan Playground in East Chai Wan, though with very good facilities, is far away from the city centre and considered by many fans as inconvenient.

The Mongkok Stadium now hosts most of the games. Yet this stadium, built in 1970s, is already outdated and the facilities are of sub-standard - changing rooms, lavatories, PA system, stands, etc. There is no shelter for spectators, and it is often an unpleasant experience of watching games there. How can you attract spectators if the stadium conditions are so poor?

The grounds where professional teams train are equally in bad condition, if not worse. For example, there is more soil than grass at both the Ho Man Tin Training Ground (for Sun Hei) and Happy Valley Training Ground (for Happy Valley). These clubs even have to share these grounds with other amateur teams or school teams! Though SCAA has its own training ground, the quality is not good: The club has to share the ground with those who want to practice golf, and as a result there are many golf balls in the grass. Players can get injured easily.

Even worse is that teams may be driven away from a grass training ground by the LCSD people, because these people think the players will trample the grass if they train here - what is the purpose of having this grass field for football if you fear players trample the grass? Keep the field for growing grass instead of playing football? Play football without setting a foot on grass? This is not a joke. There was an incident that happened at the Shing Mun Valley Training Ground, and the Hong Kong national team was driven away by the LCSD men! Utterly crazy!

HKFA itself is partly where the problem lies. The HKFA's organization is very backward. It is unable to cope with the needs of modernized management, marketing and promotion of the game. It may occasionally organize some exhibition games of foreign teams (e.g. Real Madrid and Liverpool) with good attendance, but the local game remains stagnant. The operation of the professional league relies on the voluntary contribution of the first division clubs. Yet the club representatives are somehow selfish and often have other agenda.

There have been numerous quarrels in the past and many club investors have been frustrated by some weird decisions of HKFA. For example, a few seasons ago Sun Hei were docked 3 points for not turning up for a local game, this is farcical as at the time they were flying to the Maldives for an Asian club competition fixture - how can you arrange a local game for a club at the same time when it was playing for the glory of Hong Kong football?

Even realising that football is dying, Hong Kong government do not offer sufficient support for the sport of football. The Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of HK is more interested in 'co-organizing' the 2008 Beijing Olympics than working to improve the football game in Hong Kong (typical HK mentality - we are 'Chinese' when we plead for co-organizing the Olympics with China, and yet we are 'HK-ers' when we want to compete as an independent team in the Olympics). The Hong Kong Sports Institute no longer has a football department, which means there is no advanced training for young talent.

The government has ceased to list football as an elite sport and so no longer subsidizes it. It prefers to subsidize other sports such as cycling or table tennis. This is because for these sports Hong Kong can import athletes from Mainland China, and they are more likely to win medals at the international games. Do you expect it is possible for the HK national team to ever qualify and play in the world cup?

Football is a sport for young men. The football economy needs young supporters to support the matches, buying fan merchandise or participating in fan club activities. In Hong Kong, this is not the case.

Nowadays elderly citizens form the major bulk of spectators in Hong Kong football. Young people are no longer interested in local football. They have plenty of alternatives, such as Karaoke to fill their spare time. They may watch football - the foreign matches. Watching local football is the last option they usually choose.

Coverage for Hong Kong football had diminished sharply in the last decade. The sports section of local newspaper is now dominated by football gambling information, and there is very little coverage of local football. No radio stations broadcast live football now. The government says it is not cost-efficient to broadcast games at RTHK.

There is also very little live local TV coverage. There is a weird policy that clubs have to pay the TV station (TVB) a premium to have their games broadcast on TV (in England, of course it is the opposite - game footage are sources of wealth!), and clubs may only have one game live on TV each season. So, how can Hong Kong football publicize itself?

In the mid 1990s there was a revolutionary change as live overseas football was broadcast in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Cable TV splashed out a gigantic sum of money for the broadcasting rights of live football games from Europe (e.g. leagues of England, Italy, Spain and Germany) and also some important international football tournaments (e.g. World Cups, European Championships). Rivals such as NOW TV also bought the rights for UEFA Champions League and other top football events.

Football fans in Hong Kong were then exposed to week after week of high quality football. There is now even more interest in these fixtures as they can  bet on the results at the Jockey Club. They think local football is unspectacular. Local football is certainly no match against these imports. Do you prefer to watch Ronaldinho on TV or Au Wai-lun at Mongkok Stadium?

SCAA is the name of a football club in Hong Kong. It seems strange to name a club as a reason in Hong Kong football's decline. But this is the reality of the situation. The fortunes of this club, being one of the oldest and most popular, have a great bearing on the local football scene. Whether SCAA plays well or badly has a direct impact on the turnout for Hong Kong football.

In the last few years, SCAA has lacked investors and the team has languished at the wrong end of the table. Its fans have turned their backs on the club and the overall attendance has been low. Ironically, the game with the highest attendance last season was SCAA's futile fight against relegation - 3000 attended - and many fans on that day came 'to bid farewell to SCAA'!