The director in charge of finances at the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union must be laughing all the way to the bank as the union once again reflects on another successful Hong Kong Sevens. How much profit the HKRFU made from last month's tournament will be revealed at the annual general meeting in June, but rest assured it will be in the tens of millions of dollars.
Everyone at the sell-out Hong Kong Stadium would have left thinking this was one of the best Sevens in the event's history. We have to be grateful. Hong Kong has a great tournament, undoubtedly one of the social sporting events of the year, and it provides the HKRFU with the means to fund its diverse development activities, ranging from mini-rugby to providing facilities to a growing number of players.
I have been in Dubai this week covering the ICC World Cricket League Division Two tournament. From my hotel window in Deira, I can't see the Jet Airways flight which brought me to this desert sheikhdom. It lands in the wee hours of the morning.
But I can't miss the Emirates flights which land and take off every few minutes. It reminds me of the Hong Kong Sevens' counterpart in Dubai - the Emirates Airlines Dubai Sevens - and of Ian Bremner, the newly appointed chief executive of the United Arab Emirates Rugby Association.
A few days ago, I met Bremner at the offices of the UAERA, a union which has replaced the Arabian Gulf in the HSBC Asian Five Nations Top Five competition, which kicks off next weekend. We met to talk about the new association. But in the process, Bremner revealed the Dubai Sevens wasn't owned by the former Arabian Gulf Rugby Football Union (AGRFU) or the present UAERA.
I had known the 'desert sevens', which is almost as old as the Hong Kong Sevens, was originally the idea of the Dubai Exiles Sports Club. But I had mistakenly thought over the years the Dubai Exiles had passed over control to the region's governing body, the AGRFU. Not so, Bremner says. 'The Dubai Sevens is owned by Emirates Airlines and we get something from them.' That something is funding.