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.