Showpiece postponed pending tribunal after Sun Hei found to have fielded ineligible player in earlier round

Embarrassed football chiefs have been forced to postpone today's Hong Kong League Cup final after it emerged finalists Sun Hei fielded an ineligible player earlier in the competition.

English striker John Moore was supposed to have been suspended for his team's round-robin clash against Happy Valley on February 3. But he played and scored the winning goal in Sun Hei's 1-0 victory.

A big crowd had been expected at Mongkok Stadium for this afternoon's showpiece after almost 5,000 turned out for last Thursday's semi-finals at the same venue. Instead, red-faced Hong Kong Football Association officials were forced to pull the plug on the match and appoint a tribunal to resolve the problem.

FA secretary Martin Lam said: 'We have decided to postpone the matches until a solution can be found. The Hong Kong Football Association committee decided that an independent tribunal should investigate the matter.

'There are basically two things that need to be investigated. One, the tribunal has to find out whether the player was playing illegally at the time and two, whether Sun Hei were ever given notice by the FA that the player was suspended at the time.

'I can't speculate on what the tribunal will do, but it needs to examine the legalities of the issue while looking very carefully at the HKFA by-laws. The tribunal will have to convene next week at the earliest.'