Is football more than just a game?

Maybe it was not meant to be serious, but the mainland newspaper Oriental Sports Daily stirred a hornet's nest when it suggested that Hong Kong should throw the November 17 football match against China to prevent the motherland's team being eliminated from the 2006 World Cup Finals.

The paper, in an editorial, urged Yan Shiduo, the head of the China Football Association, to 'use that thick magnetic voice of his to recite to his beloved Hong Kong compatriots the saying that 'blood is thicker than water'. Of course, he must shed tears in order to show them how moved he is.'

It added: 'When the cat asks the mouse not to eat him, then this is a real football revolution.' Presumably, in this case, the mainland is the cat and Hong Kong the mouse.

The words may well have been written with tongue in cheek, as Yan has become very unpopular in the wake of China's 1-0 defeat by Kuwait last Wednesday, and may have to quit.

The defeat means that Kuwait has a better goal difference than China. Kuwait faces Malaysia, and China will play Hong Kong. But because of Kuwait's two-goal advantage, China will have to defeat Hong Kong decisively if it wants to have any hope of reaching the final.

'China's dream has almost vanished,' the state-run China Sports Daily said after the defeat by Kuwait.