Hong Kong Premier League clubs ready to restart season – but government must reopen its facilities first
- Clubs have agreed to quarantine at home to prevent the risk of coronavirus infection and plan to resume training next week
- If the government cannot reopen its facilities, the season will have to be abandoned, warns association chief Pui Kwan-kay
The Hong Kong Football Association has made an impassioned plea to the government, hoping facilities will reopen to enable the Premier League to resume in September.
At a club meeting on Tuesday, the six teams left to complete the current season said they wanted to carry on and have agreed to special conditions.
“We have sorted out the quarantine procedures and the teams have all agreed with it,” said association chairman Pui Kwan-kay. “The players will quarantine at home. All we need is the training and competition facilities [to reopen] which is out of our control but lies with the government.
“We understand the pandemic is still a problem in Hong Kong but we also hope the government would consider lending us a hand for the sake of the sport and more importantly to help improve the livelihood of our players as they need to make a living.”
Hong Kong FA hopes to restart Premier League in September
According to the plan, the six clubs – R&F, Lee Man, Kitchee, Eastern, Southern and Happy Valley– will resume training on August 29 for three weeks until September 18. The remaining part of the 2019-20 season, suspended since March due to the pandemic, will resume the following day and finish on October 11. After a two-week break, the 2020-21 season will then kick off on October 24.
“The training [period] may be shortened to two weeks if the government cannot provide the facilities on time,” said Pui. “That’s our basic requirement and if that cannot be met, we will have to sit down again and discuss the possibility of abandoning the remaining season.”
The chief also said they are negotiating with Fifa regarding the signing of new players for the remaining season.
“We understand there are concerns from clubs regarding whether their newly signed players can be featured in the remaining season,” he said. “As far as we understand, Fifa has given us flexibility to handle unemployed players because of the pandemic. We will now ask the clubs to provide details of their newly signed players and check if they can be registered for the remaining season under this rule.”
Pui said they plan to use two stadiums for the remaining season – Mong Kok Stadium and Tseung Kwan O Sports Ground. “If we can have two venues, we can rotate it to keep the pitch in good condition,” he said.
The association will write to the government on Wednesday to make their venue request, according to Pui.
