2025 New Year’s resolutions for Hong Kong sport: put bums on seats, and no Messi incidents

Getting fit and watching less sport, or watching even more sport: these may have been among your New Year’s resolutions as January 1 rolled around. But what of Hong Kong? It has left behind an eventful 2024 in which its athletes collected another decent Olympic medal haul in Paris, invited Lionel Messi to visit with disastrous consequences, and put the finishing touches to a new 50,000-seat stadium. The city faces a 2025 with National Games podiums on its wish list, when it will begin using that shiny new venue at Kai Tak Sports Park and continue working to reassert itself on the global stage. With that in mind, the Post’s sports desk has put its collective thinking caps on and come up with some resolutions for local sport over the next 12 months. Time to get serious If Hong Kong wants to develop as a sporting hub, let alone as a sporting power in the region, its first order of business for 2025 must be to upgrade the officials who oversee much of what takes place in the city. There are too many in positions of power, who talk, and talk and talk a good game, but cannot deliver when the time comes because they are not qualified to operate in the modern sporting landscape. You would not let someone who dabbles in trading on their home computer run the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, or the friend who organises nights out in Lan Kwai Fong run a Fortune 500 company simply on that basis, and yet too many governing bodies have done just that. There is no better illustration of this, than in the committee that doles out public funds to support events being staged in Hong Kong. Too often in 2024 they were average at best and the millions spent did nothing to raise the city’s profile globally. Josh Ball ‘Mega’ events that deliver I would love to see Hong Kong host a “mega” football event that does not blow up in the organisers’ faces. Lionel Messi had missed matches with several minor injuries in the months before Tatler Asia arranged for his club, Inter Miami, to come to play an exhibition game. Tickets were sold at eye-watering prices, through marketing that relied heavily on the risky assumption that the veteran would play. His track record of appearing in matches on such tours was patchy, and he had barely featured days earlier in Saudi Arabia. Outcome: Messi sat out the Hong Kong match and everyone left disappointed. Hopes that fans would get better value in future receded at last month’s Real Madrid v Barcelona legends match. Some of those who paid HK$6,800 for tickets to meet the players did not get to do so, amid a flurry of excuses. Lesson learned yet? There is talk of Liverpool coming to town this year. It could mark a return to English Premier League sides choosing Hong Kong for their preseason prep. Please, let’s get this one right. Lars Hamer Medals, and host well, at National Games Co-hosting November’s National Games, alongside Guangdong and Macau, will be Hong Kong’s first staging of a multi-sport event since the 2009 East Asian Games. Hong Kong’s most successful National Games were in 2017, when its athletes returned from Tianjin with two golds, seven silvers and seven bronzes. Topping that could be on the cards this year. Olympic champion Cheung Ka-long will surely be favourite for foil gold, while fellow fencers Kaylin Hsieh Sin-yan, Cedric Ho Wai-hang and Daphne Chan Nok-sze are also contenders. Cyclists have brought home the most podium places since the city joined the Games in 1997. Maintaining that may fall largely on Ceci Lee Sze-wing: the Olympian will aim to defend her road race title, alongside her other duties in the velodrome. It isn’t only results that count. How the city performs as a host will be tested, even more so for events held at its brand new Kai Tak Sports Park. Mike Chan Value for Hong Kong taxpayer Basking in the afterglow of Hong Kong’s exploits in Paris, it became de rigueur to suggest increasing our athletes’ government funding, and relaxing the rules that exclude those who aren’t funded. It sounds good; it sounds like something no Hongkonger who enjoyed the Games could disagree with. But will that bring results? It’s right to laud Hong Kong’s feats in the French capital and to acknowledge the part played by funds and facilities footed by the public. A few athletes yet to reach the pinnacle can aspire to do so in the future, with that backing. Many more cannot, however generous it is. We all felt great pride at seeing our flag flying high last summer, yet I suspect the average Hongkonger would be surprised to learn how many unsuccessful athletes are paid a monthly grant by the taxpayer. Do we already overpay for prestige? It sounds harsh, but we owe it to the up-and-coming good ones to demand high bars, not safety nets. So, before making rash promises, let’s resolve to have a nuanced discussion. Tom Bell Turbo-charge local football Hong Kong football chiefs must urgently look at their men’s domestic game. Pundit and former international Leung Kwun-chung recently told the Post it was “hard to see a future” for it. Interest has declined and gates are regularly counted in three figures. Here is the thing, though: some of the football is good. It is often feisty, entertaining and competitive. The leading teams, Tai Po, Eastern, Kitchee and Lee Man, routinely share absorbing contests. Go to a Tai Po home match and you will see a passionate support, cheering on talented local and overseas players. Eastern, too, have assembled a fine team. Hong Kong football lacks the stars it has sometimes attracted before, although the Post was told Lee Man president Norman Lee Man-yan tried to hire Roberto Di Matteo as head coach. It is the likes of Lee whose money is sustaining the club game. They need and deserve help from the football association, which is responsible for overseeing and promoting the league. Come on, get the wheels turning in 2025. Paul McNamara Bums on seats Having been in Hong Kong for less than a year, it’s been a shock to see swathes of empty seats at so many events. Whether it’s poor marketing, overpricing or just a bad product, it’s a real shame to see football events stinking out Hong Kong Stadium and less well supported sports entertaining only handfuls of people. Hong Kong remained one of the most visited cities in the world in 2024, while the reaction to its success at the Olympics showed an appetite for sport locally. It’s been a while since top football clubs visited Hong Kong regularly. Atletico Madrid in the summer were the first of the elite since Manchester City in 2019. With the new Kai Tak stadium opening for business, the opportunity to be a global hub for sport is there. Everything starts with drumming up interest and getting people inside. Andrew Cesare Richardson

2025 New Year’s resolutions for Hong Kong sport: put bums on seats, and no Messi incidents

Our writers wish for better ‘mega’ events, larger crowds and a best ever National Games, but query the clamour to pay athletes more

Time to get serious