Fifa World Cup winners Totti, Materazzi among stars heading to Hong Kong for Lunar New Year Cup
- Tournament returns to city after five years, with Italian pair Francesco Totti and Marco Materazzi among those expected to play
- Hong Kong will be represented by likes of Yapp Hung-fai and Fan Chun-yip in friendly game on February 13
World Cup winners Francesco Totti, Marco Materazzi and Carles Puyol are set to play in Hong Kong next February, with the Lunar New Year Cup returning to the city after a five-year break.
Organisers announced the return of the competition on Thursday, and said they also expected the Netherlands’ midfielder Wesley Sneijder and former Manchester United and Argentina midfielder Juan Sebastian Veron to appear in the exhibition game.
While players such as Italian duo Totti and Materazzi, who won the World Cup in 2006, will visit the city for the fist time for the game on February 13, Julio Cesar returns after a previous visit with the Brazil national team in 2005.
Paul Kam, who led the effort to arrange the game, said it had taken more than a year to put together.
“I proposed to the HKFA [Hong Kong Football Association] back in March but really, the lobbying work began long ago,” he said. “It’s easy to find a team to visit Hong Kong, I can ring Tottenham Hotspur right now, but to bring 17, 18 players to town at the same time is difficult and challenging.”
Kam also believed the players would be “very useful” in terms of promoting Hong Kong.
