Newly-promoted First Division side Kitchee have signed former J.League player Dan Ito.
Ito spent two seasons in the Japanese Second Division with Vegalta Sendai, but left before their promotion to First Division in 2001. He arrives in Hong Kong from Vietnamese side Saigon Port, having spent the previous two seasons with Woodlands Wellington in Singapore and West Gate of Australia.
The signing of the Japanese midfielder was one of a string of surprises announced by the Wan Chai-based sports club.
There was none greater than a rapidly assembled squad who have the calibre to be among the top teams in the 10-club league and personnel that are tantamount to a reformation of the Instant-Dict club who dominated Hong Kong football, winning three league titles and two FA Cups in six seasons until they was disbanded two years ago.
'Around 10 of our key players are from the old Instant-Dict team. It's like the regrouping of that old side,' declared Kitchee's managing director Ken Ng Kin, who was executive director of Instant-Dict from 1995 to 2000.
The reunion brings together three of those footballers in an innovative player-coach-by-committee that is bound to raise some eyebrows within the game. Former Hong Kong Footballer of the Year Ricky Cheng Siu-chung will join Lam Hing-lun and Yugoslav Dejan Antonic, who played for Sun Hei last season, to form a triumvirate.