The soccer community is expecting more resources from the government when the long-awaited consultancy study on lifting the standard of the sport is revealed today.
Conducted by the Home Affairs Bureau, the study comes in response to a Legislative Council motion moved in 2008 urging the government to promote development of the game, raise standards and enhance community involvement.
The study will also urge the Hong Kong Football Association to reform its structure, become more transparent in its decision making and enlist more professional help from outside, a person who has seen the study says.
'The most important thing is to give more financial resources to soccer, especially for junior development programmes,' said Lee Kin-wo, one of Hong Kong's most celebrated players who was once briefly in charge of the Hong Kong team and is now coach of Third Division side Eastern.
'A strong and healthy feeder system is the base for development, but at the moment we lack the resources to implement many of our youth programmes, which has hindered our results at senior level. If the government is willing to help, they must inject new resources.'
Ken Ng Kin, president of First Division club Kitchee, hopes to see more resources that can meet the needs of individual clubs.
'If you want to build the sport, you cannot take away club football,' he said. 'For example, you cannot ignore Manchester United and Liverpool if you want England to do well in international soccer.'