The Hong Kong Football Association has given Chinese First Division club Hunan Xiangjun until 6pm tomorrow to confirm their entry of a team in the SAR's domestic competition.
The First Division league began on Saturday with the FA still unable to confirm the number of teams in the competition this season. Having received a verbal commitment through the Chinese FA last week, the HKFA has been unable to get the final written confirmation of the Xiangjun club's participation.
With the local teams clamouring for the fixture list to be finalised beyond next weekend's three games, the HKFA has announced that, if the issue is not decided by tomorrow evening, it will go ahead with just eight clubs. 'The ball is in their court. We've done all we can,' said HKFA general secretary Martin Lam Chun-ying. 'We can't wait any longer. It's unfair to the other teams. The contingency is that if there are only eight teams we might formulate another competition in addition to the double round-robin.'
Lam revealed the smaller number of clubs - 10 took part last season - would not be balanced by having each side play the others three times for a total of 21 games, but that the HKFA would instead add another competition to run along with the league, League Cup, FA Cup and Senior Shield. 'It won't be triple round-robin. If there's a new tournament we want it to be innovative, something that will attract people and prize money,' he said.
