OpinionLeft Field: For the Hong Kong Sixes, the end seems nigh
Second successive cancellation of popular international cricket tournament in city points to possibly irreversible collapse
Quo vadis, the Hong Kong Sixes? The question will be on the lips of every fan after organisers cancelled the popular tournament for the second straight year.
Unwilling to risk the high possibility of losing money, the Hong Kong Cricket Association decided last week to pull the plug on an event, which had brought much kudos and publicity to the city.
For more than two decades, the Hong Kong Sixes has held its own on the public psyche, both at home as well as abroad.
The Sixes does not have a facility capable of drawing more than a couple of thousand fans. The market economics work against it
HKCA chairman Mike Walsh has laid the blame for this tournament not going ahead in November squarely on the government's Mega Events Fund.
The MEF, a body which has been ridiculed by lawmakers, turned down the Hong Kong Sixes on at least four occasions, and without its financial support finding a private sponsor proved doubly hard.
The MEF was slammed by the Legislative Council in May for allegedly hiding key information. When applying for a second tranche of HK$150 million in 2012 from Legco's Finance Committee, the MEF chose not to mention that the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) had suggested some two years previously that the fund hand back all unused funds and cease operating.
All organisers needed for the Sixes to go ahead was HK$3.5 million or HK$4 million.
Considering the amount in the MEF kitty - it had more than HK$150 million, as a large amount of the initial deposit used to set up the fund in 2009 (HK$100 million) had been unspent - it is a travesty that this relative pittance was not forthcoming.