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2024-06-29 14:05:07
Hong Kong should stop spending millions of taxpayers cash on football, says ex-coach
Jorn Andersen, the former Hong Kong head coach, said local football officials would have no motivation to improve the game in the city as long as they were propped up by millions of dollars of taxpayer cash every year.
The Norwegian, who quit last month to take over at China League One side Yunnan Yukun, said he did not want to open fire on his old employers, but they needed to be “more professional, from top to bottom”.
Andersen, who spent 2½ years in charge of the senior team, said he felt the Football Association of Hong Kong, China (HKFA) did “not do enough” to develop the sport.
After taking over in December 2021, Andersen transformed a directionless Hong Kong team into a dynamic side that qualified for this year’s AFC Asian Cup finals in Qatar.
While he made Hong Kong football feel good about itself on the surface, however, the former North Korea coach was hamstrung by a failing, poorly-run domestic scene, which attracts scant supporter interest.
An average of 576 fans watched matches in the local Premier League last season. The HKFA received HK$24.2 million (US$3.1 million) of government funds for the 2023-24 season, and Andersen believes this contributes to a lack of action from the likes of HKFA chairman Eric Fok Kai-shan, among others.
“The government supports Hong Kong football with big money,” Andersen told the Post. “It is a big problem that the HKFA don’t earn their own money. Every other association sells out stadiums, and has sponsors and big TV deals. This is how they live, not from government funding.
“In Hong Kong, we live off the government. We do nothing to get sponsorship deals, nothing to get spectators in the stadiums, and nothing to get good television deals.”
Fok was elected unopposed 12 months ago, to extend the ongoing 54-year family dynasty, after father Timothy and grandfather Henry both served extended terms as the association’s president.
Andersen said he “had a positive experience” with Eric Fok, although reiterated his dismay over the chairman staying away from the Asian Cup finals until Hong Kong’s closing match.
“He asked me a lot about what we can improve,” Andersen said. “I gave him lots of tips, so we will see what he can do for the HKFA.
“I gave people at the HKFA ideas to be better and more professional. I think they listened, but, sometimes, didn’t have the [desire] to do what I emphasised for them.
“I liked working with the people [in senior positions]. If they are the right people [for those jobs], I don’t want to comment. It is for the HKFA to answer.”
As well as searching for Andersen’s replacement, the governing body is also without a CEO, after Joaquin Tam was fired last month.
As an example of inadequate executive management, Andersen cited the Asian Cup qualifiers in India, during the coronavirus pandemic, in June 2022, when Hong Kong travelled without a doctor.
“I was the doctor, I had to decide who could play, and who couldn’t,” he said. “If I picked a player, and something [bad] happened, I was the reason.”