The Hong Kong Football Association (HKA) was left red-faced and out of pocket on Tuesday, after only managing to sell about half the tickets for a glamor friendly against Argentina to mark its centenary.
Only 20,230 fans turned up at the 40,000-capacity Hong Kong Stadium to witness a two-goal, 30-minute cameo by four-time FIFA World Player of the Year Lionel Messi in a lopsided 7-0 stroll for the FIFA World Cup runners-up.
The South China Morning Post reported months ago that the association needed a full house to break even after pricing the cost of staging the fixture at HK$30 million (US$3.87 million).
Photo: Reuters
“It is a shame. The second-best team in the world is here and we have a half-empty stadium,” HKFA head Mark Sutcliffe told the paper. “We will have a debrief with the agent and with all of our team. We will try to find out the reasons.”
Expensive ticket prices could be blamed, while many other Hong Kong residents simply have far more important things to worry about than soccer, like the thousands of pro-democracy protesters who have taken to the streets of the territory in recent weeks, demanding that Beijing stand by a promise to introduce universal suffrage at elections for its leader in 2017.
With the protests now into their third week, the political mood in the territory was captured during the Argentina match, where boos could be heard as the Chinese national anthem played before kickoff and yellow umbrellas — a symbol of the Occupy Central movement that galvanized the demonstrations — were seen in the stands.
Photo: Reuters
Home fans, some wearing Argentina shirts, cheered as the visitors racked up the goals, with Ever Banega opening the scoring before Gonzalo Higuain and Nicolas Gaitan each netted twice, as did Messi.
One fan scored an autograph from the Barcelona striker after running onto the field in a security breach, while Hong Kong forward Christian Kwesi Annan collected the prized possession of the Argentina skipper’s shirt.
“I am saving it for life. I’m not going to trade it for anything. I’m going to frame it, put it on the wall and then treasure it,” the Ghana-born striker told the Post.
There were no such valuables for the association, however, and the paper said that HKFA chairman Brian Leung Hung-tak and president Timothy Fok Hun-tsing would pay for 80 percent of the losses on the match, with board members Ken Ng Kin and Pui Kwan-kay picking up the rest of bill.
After the prestige of hosting the two-time world champions, Hong Kong return to a standard of life more customary for a 164th-ranked side when they travel to Taiwan next month to take on the hosts, North Korea and Guam in the East Asian Cup qualifiers.
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