Grainger's hopes fall victim to eligibility rules

THE much-maligned eligibility rules for the Asian Games claimed another unlucky victim yesterday when Mark Grainger learned he would not be travelling to Thailand in December with Hong Kong's football team - barely 36 hours after being named in the SAR's 18-man squad.

The popular Sing Tao defender, who has lived in Hong Kong since 1986, discovered he was not eligible for the Games after being telephoned by a reporter yesterday morning. To be eligible for the Asian Games, athletes must be born in the country they wish to represent or have at least one Asian parent.

'It came as a bit of a surprise,' Grainger said yesterday. 'If those are the rules, then those are the rules and I'll have to accept them.

'But it does strike me as a bit odd that I could be allowed to play for Hong Kong in the World Cup - the biggest football tournament in the world - but not in the Asian Games.' Grainger's case is not unique, and Hong Kong sport is peppered with similar frustrating stories.

Defenders of the Olympic Council of Asia's (OCA) rules trot out the old mantra about 'the Asian Games being for Asians', blithely ignoring the fact that there is not another major international sporting event in the world which uses racial origin to determine eligibility.

A number of Hong Kong athletes in various sports have been effectively excluded from the Asian Games in the past because of the eligibility rules, the obvious example being squash queen Dawn Olsen. Olsen, who has lived in Hong Kong since her childhood and who has represented the SAR in virtually every major women's squash tournament, was told earlier this year that she would not be eligible for the Games.