Hong Kong fans re-engaging with football team after highs and lows of roller coaster 2024
City team bookend year with stirring AFC Asian Cup finals performances and six successive victories to match 39-year-old run
In the week before Christmas, more Hongkongers paid to watch Philip Chan Siu-kwan and his city team colleagues thump lowly Guam than forked out for a first-hand view of Thierry Henry, Xavi Hernandez, Iker Casillas and Co.
Granted, that glittering trio of World Cup winners share an average age of 44.5 and tickets to watch a phoney war between teams of Barcelona and Real Madrid legends were priced through the roof.
Coupled with the prevailing cynicism around exhibition matches, after Lionel Messi’s infamous no-show during Inter Miami’s abortive February visit to the city, it was surprising that even 7,982 people bothered to turn up.
Three nights earlier, at the same Hong Kong Stadium venue, local football association staff were privately content, and somewhat relieved, that 8,236 showed up for the hosts’ 5-0 East Asian Football Federation Championship (EAFF) qualifying final victory Guam.
Attendances had been dropping, with the nadir arriving only nine days previously, when a desperately disappointing 3,329 watched Hong Kong beat Mongolia 3-0.
Sitting inside a half-full Mong Kok Stadium, it was legitimate to wonder whether the connection locals formed with their team at January’s AFC Asian Cup finals in Qatar had disappeared following the departure of former boss Jorn Andersen, who quit midway through 2024 to take over at Yunnan Yukun.
