OpinionLeft field: Project Phoenix becoming a white elephant
The multimillion-dollar plan aimed at reviving Hong Kong soccer is in disarray following another high-level departure
The high churn rate of national coaches is a damning statistic that the Hong Kong Football Association cannot afford to blithely ignore with the government's big investment in the sport. Ernie Merrick was the latest casualty, taking the number of coaches who have come and gone since 2000 to 10. It seems the hot seat is busier than the MTR at rush hour. In Merrick's case, he lasted nine months.
Merrick was a former Australian A-League coach. He joined Melbourne Victory in 2005 and led them to two championships and was named coach of the year twice. But the club let him go in March last year, apparently disappointed with a series of poor results.
With a strong background of working with young talent - he had been involved with the Victorian Institute of Sport developing its junior programmes - Merrick was the third choice on the HKFA radar after two unsuccessful applications from England Under-20 coach Brian Eastick and Darren Robinson, a former performance coach with Nottingham Forest.
Merrick arrived amid much fanfare as he was the first national coach to be installed since the HKFA adopted the government-backed Project Phoenix, a comprehensive plan to address all facets of the game, from grass roots to a professional league to the national team. His arrival in January was lauded by HKFA chief Brian Leung Hung-tak, who said the Scotsman would "bring a new dimension" to the local game. Sadly, it wasn't spectacular 3-D. Rather a 3-3 record in internationals was viewed in some quarters as a drab and grey opening set. The honeymoon didn't last long.
The HKFA became disillusioned with Merrick and started nit-picking his every move. It was clear the clubs, especially South China, were not supportive of Merrick, who according to Leung (at least at the outset) was a "major component of Project Phoenix".
The HKFA board of directors failed to see eye-to-eye with Merrick, who was tagged as an appointee of former chief executive Gordon McKie, who himself left under a cloud less than a year into his three-year contract. At the tail end of his tenure, Merrick pointed a finger at Kitchee boss Ken Ng Kin, the last straw being Ng's blog following a 3-0 loss to Malaysia, where he said Merrick had adopted the wrong playing formation.