The East Stand

R&F demise asks questions over Hong Kong football but China will not be the answer

Guangzhou-based R&F have walked away from the Hong Kong Premier League after four difficult years and no trophies

Mainland team’s departure has reignited debate over a team from the city joining the Chinese Super League

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China’s Yang Xu is challenged by Hong Kong’s Jean Jacques Kilama during a Fifa World Cup qualifier in 2015. Photo: AFP

Formerly of the South China Morning Post, Jonathan White has written about sport from China for nearly 15 years, and covered the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the Fifa World Cup in Brazil in 2014 and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Published: 11:05am, 19 Oct 2020Updated: 10:34pm, 19 Oct 2020

Last weekend’s end to the Hong Kong Premier League season also saw the end of Guangzhou-based R&F and with it the end of the mainland experiment in the SAR’s football scene.

The mainland side decided to take their ball home after four years in the city’s top flight, also taking with them well paid employment for some of Hong Kong’s top footballers.

R&F’s brief foray into the top flight was a strange time. They started off by playing their home games in Hong Kong during their debut season before moving to Guangzhou’s Yanzigang Stadium, the former home of their Chinese Super League sister club Guangzhou R&F.

Choosing China as a base definitely made life more difficult for the mainland side, adding an extra element of paperwork to the Byzantine bureaucracy of football by bringing visas into the mix.

Eastern's Lucas tries to escape the attentions of his R&F rivals in the 2019-20 Hong Kong Premier League title decider at Hong Kong Stadium. Photo: HKFA

This season – and next season if they had decided to stay – they were forced to base themselves in Hong Kong anyway, after the coronavirus pandemic saw the season finished behind closed doors following a midseason pause.