I AM very disappointed by the planned use of the new Hong Kong Stadium. As the major venue for Hong Kong soccer for many years in the past, the old stadium provided much joy and excitement for soccer fans of Hong Kong and was the breeding ground for many outstanding Hong Kong soccer players. As the old stadium became dated, the spending of multi-billion dollars to redevelop it into a new stadium was an admirable and well-deserved move. However, I was disappointed to find out that promoting local soccer is apparently not the main goal of the new stadium. At a high rental of HK$150,000 per use, Hong Kong soccer clubs can only afford to schedule some 10 games in the new stadium for the entire year. Many of them are exhibition games between local clubs and foreign teams. At that rate, how can the local soccer benefit much from the new stadium? The standard of Hong Kong soccer has been declining. It is not because there are not enough people interested in the game, in terms of sponsorship, player availability and spectators. A key reason is the very poor playing facility. The Mongkok Stadium is practically a joke. No one can play decent soccer on that pitch. Many good foreign players do not want to join or stay with Hong Kong clubs because they feel they cannot perform high levels of soccer at Mongkok. Local players cannotimprove their game because they cannot develop good skills there either. The recent turnout of some 25,000 people for the South China-Al Qadisiyah game is a demonstration that there is enough interest in Hong Kong for decent soccer playing in a nice environment. The Saudi Arabians showed clearly better soccer skills than our local players. There are probably many reasons for that. A key reason, I believe, is that they have better pitches on which to practise and play, while our players can only do so on such pitches as Mongkok and Happy Valley. If the idea of the new stadium is not to help the local soccer to improve, we might as well not have developed the old stadium. At least, we would still have a relatively decent place to play and enjoy Hong Kong soccer. TSE CHO CHE Wan Chai
