Crouch, touch ... engage | After the final whistle, the ‘legacy game’ begins
The local rugby community has been and continues to be spoiled by a succession of international competitions here in Hong Kong. However, the ‘game’ doesn't always end with the final whistle.
The local rugby community has been and continues to be spoiled by a succession of international competitions being hosted here in Hong Kong.
The annual festival of Sevens week in late March was followed by the IRB Junior World Rugby Trophy (JWRT), which featured eight international under-20 teams playing some of the most passionate and engrossing games witnessed here for many a year.
We are now midway through the Asian Five Nations competition, which doubles as the region’s World Cup qualifier, and at the end of the month we host the Asian Women’s 15s Championship.
A considerable amount of time is spent both in writing bid documents to obtain the right to host these events, and then subsequently reviewing how successful the staging was – and a key component of making sure these write-ups carry an ever-increasing weight is that of “legacy”.
Profits from the Sevens have allowed the [HKRFU] to invest HK$100 million into improving sports facilities over the past 12 years
Quite how, when and why sports organisations became so obsessed with legacy is difficult to pinpoint, but I suspect it grew out of a need to justify spiralling hosting costs to reluctant governments, sceptical politicians, and fearful local residents.
