The Hong Kong Football Association will not lower ticket prices to boost attendance at tomorrow night's Carlsberg Cup final even though only 16,481 spectators turned up on Sunday.
Crowd figures this year were not nearly as bad as 2004 when Sweden, Norway and Honduras played before just over 12,000 spectators. Still, this year's opening-day crowd was the second worst since the tournament moved to the refurbished Hong Kong Stadium in 1995.
The HKFA is hoping for a much better turn out tomorrow when World Cup finalists South Korea take on Denmark for the title. Hong Kong challenge Croatia for third place. 'We are satisfied with the attendance because we got almost 17,000,' said HKFA secretary Martin Lam Chun-ying.
'The crowd on Sunday was certainly better than the attendance we had in 2004.'
Despite perfect weather, many fans stayed away from the extravaganza which has, over the years, become a sporting tradition in Hong Kong.
This year's disappointing attendance fell way short of last year's figure when about 26,000 spectators watched five-times world champions Brazil thrash Hong Kong 7-1. 'The weather was perfect but I guess again a lot of people were out of town for the holidays and another factor is that there are too many football games on TV,' Lam said.
He added that the cheapest tickets for tomorrow's games would remain at $100 and the most expensive would be $350. 'About 90 per cent of the top-bracket tickets were sold out on Sunday so we are satisfied with that,' he said.
