England striker Michael Owen and his Liverpool teammates will prepare for next year's Premier League campaign with a match in Hong Kong. The Merseyside giants and the Hong Kong Football Association both confirmed yesterday that Gerard Houllier's stars would play against a local side in late July. 'They want to come,' said HKFA chairman Martin Hong Po-kui. 'We're negotiating details of the terms and conditions of the deal through our agent [International Management Group]. Share of revenues and availability of their players are issues we need to iron out.' The Reds will travel on to Shanghai after playing at the Hong Kong Stadium. A Liverpool press officer said last night: 'It is highly likely we will be visiting Hong Kong at the end of July.' Hong said the local side would either be the national team or a Hong Kong League XI Select. 'We have to see how many foreign players will be willing to stay until July as their contracts will expire at the end of May. But the team we'll field is not the main concern because they really want to come over here,' Hong said. The Merseyside giants, who are in a freefall after leading the Premier League - they have one point to show from six league games - will be the biggest club to visit the SAR since arch-rivals Manchester United stormed into town in July 1999, despite missing star players such as David Beckham, Roy Keane and Paul Scholes. More than 36,000 fans turned up to watch Sir Alex Ferguson's side beat South China 2-0 at the Hong Kong Stadium. Hong believes the likes of Owen, Steven Gerrard, Danny Murphy, Sami Hyypia and Dietmar Hamann will draw tremendous interest from Hong Kong's football-crazy fans. 'If Owen comes, it will be a huge attraction to local fans. We hope Owen will come and we believe he will,' Hong said. 'The quality of the local game isn't high and we're struggling to bring back the fans. It's tremendous that a great team like Liverpool will come to play here. We have been aiming to stage better tournaments featuring international teams and our national side. 'Liverpool are ranked second in terms of the size of the fan base here behind Manchester United. I heard that Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa is also a fan of Liverpool,' he said. The HKFA has traded the hosting rights to IMG in return for a lump-sum of sponsorship and a share of gate receipts to avoid running the risk of Liverpool only coming with their brandname but leaving their stars at home. 'The FA doesn't have the budget to hold a tournament of this scale so we asked for a sum of sponsorship, along with a share of the gate receipts. We are still in negotiation on the amount of the sponsorship we'll receive,' Hong said. Asia has become a mouth-watering market for Premiership sides, most notably Manchester United, in recent years. Following their 1999 visit to Hong Kong, the Red Devils paraded their skills in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore in a Far East tour almost at the same time as Liverpool toured Thailand and Singapore last year. Arsenal and Newcastle United have also spread their wings to this part of the world. Liverpool coach Gerard Houllier said after their Singapore tour last year: 'The fans buy our shorts, they buy our scarves, they buy all sorts of things. Why can't we once, every two or three years, just go to see our fans? Manchester United are doing the same thing.'
