Premier League revolution in Hong Kong? Clubs want city’s FA to share power
- Top-flight clubs are discussing changes they could make to the city’s domestic football, as low revenues force them into action
- FA chiefs ‘have no expertise’ when it comes to promoting the game, says Lee Man president Norman Lee, who adds: ‘There needs to be a new mindset’
Hong Kong’s leading football clubs are planning to try to wrest control of the local Premier League from the city’s football association.
Norman Lee Man-yan, president of Lee Man, said a “new mindset” was urgently required, and insisted the FA was incapable of promoting its domestic competition.
Lee said the top flight’s 10 clubs (its 11th team, HKU23, are operated by the FA) unanimously want to form an independent company to oversee the division, using the model adopted in the cash-rich English equivalent.
The Hong Kong clubs have drawn up a draft memorandum of understanding, and first approached the FA last year.
“There seem to be a lot of obstacles from their side, and they are not very keen to talk with us,” Lee said. “There is a history of them as the exclusive agency running all Hong Kong football affairs. Trying to break through their mentality is very tough, but there needs to be a new mindset.”