Hong Kong basketball boss says he will pay players’ medical bills, after first calling for more taxpayer cash
- Basketball Association chairman Norman Chan says his organisation will find money to cover shortfall in players’ insurance coverage
- Chan initially asks government to provide ‘one-time gracious payment’ and says association did nothing wrong in policy row
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Hong Kong’s basketball chief has promised to personally reimburse players left out of pocket by inadequate medical insurance, after initially suggesting the government should pay up.
At a gathering earlier this week, Norman Chan Shui-tim, chairman of the Hong Kong Basketball Association, said the Leisure and Cultural Services Department should fund a shortfall that has left players with hefty hospital bills when getting injured overseas.
Chan also said the “non-profit” association was not sitting on a fortune, and it had done “nothing wrong” in providing coverage for players representing the city overseas that capped individual claims at HK$10,000.
But accounts posted online for the 2021-22 financial year show the association with HK$40 million in assets, nearly HK$17 million of which is listed as “cash at bank”.
The same accounts also lists HK$4.5 million in salary and MPF payments for staff.
After saying the LCSD should make a “one-time gracious payment, or additional appropriation for us to apply funding for when such situations arise”, Chan then said he had told association officials to find the cash elsewhere.
“We will sit down and chat with the players after the Chinese New Year holidays, and try to figure out how we can help them,” he said at the Hong Kong Bulls event. “The association will seek to reserve funds, raise money from our hosts of presidents, or even pay out of my pocket to settle those bills.”
In November, the Post revealed that several local players had been left with tens of thousands of dollars worth of medical bills, and Chan said he would respond to the “emergencies that attracted so much attention”.
Finding more money is not Chan’s only challenge, with less than two weeks to go before Hong Kong’s Asian Cup qualifiers against the Philippines and New Zealand, there has still been no squad named.
And the chairman admitted the 12 players who do get picked may not be the best in the city, because of the association’s unwillingness to wait for stars to make themselves available.
As things stand, the likes of former captain and star centre Duncan Reid, as well as forward Leung Shiu-wah are placed only on the reserves list.
“Some players were not able to commit themselves early on and the initial squad was set,” Chan said. “So some of the star players are on reserves and will replace those should any player drop out due to injury or other reasons.”
Leung, who is part of the team that secured the crucial 71-66 win over Malaysia last February to cement Hong Kong’s place in the qualifier, said he wanted to play, but said things were out of his hands.
“Of course, I want to play for the team, it was us who won that game to earn the chance to play on,” the 29-year-old Bulls forward said. “I’ll play if they call me up but there’s nothing I can do if they don’t.”
