Kitchee have signed up the services of a top sports scientist and fitness instructor to prepare them for the second half of the Hong Kong league season. The club, who are without a game until January 15 following their elimination from the League Cup, have secured the services of John McCarthy.
The Irishman, who worked with West Ham United in the English Premiership between 2000 and 2003, spent this year helping Shenzhen Jianlibao win their first-ever Chinese championship. The 41-year-old will arrive immediately after the New Year and spend up to two months with the club.
'The first half of the season hasn't been as successful as we'd hoped and it would have been very easy for us to panic and start changing players, but instead we've taken an innovative step to bring in someone who can improve our entire squad,' said Kitchee chief executive Ken Ng Kin.
'Fitness has traditionally been considered a weak point of Hong Kong football. John will bring us cutting edge knowledge of sports science and will educate our coaching staff so that, in the long term, Kitchee will have the best prepared players in the league.'
The move is typical of the ambition and imagination that Kitchee have shown since returning to the First Division. Last summer they beat AC Milan and only lost to Newcastle United on penalties in exhibition matches. Last month they signed a groundbreaking, $4 million sponsorship deal with Japanese multinational Canon. And last week they launched e-Brilliance, an on-line store offering electrical and other goods, as part of their plan to become financially self-supporting.
Although by no means a household name in England, McCarthy's expertise is. He is the man who identified that England keeper David James' addiction to video games was dulling his reactions while working as a consultant to Liverpool. McCarthy, who spent almost five years as head of sports science services at the National Sports Medicine Institute of the UK, still advises several Premiership players.