The inaugural Nations Championship finals — the biennial playoffs among the world’s leading international rugby union sides — is to be held in London next year with Qatar lined up for 2028, but Hong Kong is an increasingly popular suggestion for subsequent editions.
The Kai Tak Stadium hosted its first international sporting event last weekend by staging the Hong Kong Sevens, relocating the famous tournament to the site of the former airport in Kowloon which now hosts the Cathay Pacific-sponsored sports park.
Transforming the site, which hosts the 50,000-seat stadium, a 10,000-capacity indoor arena and a track-and-field venue, cost US$3.8 billion.
Photo: AFP
It was confirmed on Monday that in July, Tottenham Hotspur would play Arsenal at Kai Tak Stadium in the first north London derby staged outside the UK, while Liverpool would also be in action against AC Milan.
Al Baxter, a former Australia prop turned architect and one of the brains behind the stadium in Hong Kong, said it would be the “perfect venue” and the territory was “really keen” to host the Nations Championship finals.
Meanwhile, the British and Irish Lions are looking for a warm-up match on the way to New Zealand in 2029. The Lions played in Hong Kong in 2013, facing off against the Barbarians, while Australia played New Zealand in two Bledisloe Cup fixtures in 2008 and 2010.
The Lions match was blighted by the searing heat in Hong Kong in June, but the Kai Tak Stadium’s retractable roof solves that problem.
Asked if Hong Kong was an option for the Lions, World Rugby chief executive Alan Gilpin said: “Definitely. The beauty of this is when the Lions did come through here, it would have been 2013 on the way to Australia. It was so hot that no one could hold the ball, it was like a bar of soap. Now if you close the roof, it would be a brilliant spectacle.”
The Kai Tak Stadium might also offer a clue as to what the planned ￡663 million (US$873 million) refurbishment of Twickenham might look like. Populous has been signed by the Rugby Football Union for its stadium masterplan with work due to begin in 2027.
In Hong Kong, the decision was made to relocate from the old stadium in Causeway Bay whereas with Twickenham — unless the somewhat hollow-sounding threat to relocate to Milton Keynes comes to fruition — redevelopment is the order of the day.
Populous were the architects of the new Wembley Stadium, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the London Stadium, the Sphere in Las Vegas, the Aviva Stadium in Dublin and the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.
“We’ve done hundreds of these sorts of buildings,” Populous director Richard Breslin said.
“There’s not one single bowl, there’s not one single venue which is the same. They all have to be totally different,” he said.
“Even in a big city like this or in London or any of the major cities, it’s not one big amorphous blob. You’ve got little villages, so you’re really trying to pick up on that and try to understand that, and try and respect that as well,” he added.
The Rakuten Monkeys on Sunday downed the CTBC Brothers 2-1, handing the hosts their second consecutive loss in the best-of-seven CPBL Taiwan Series at the Taipei Dome. Monkeys’ ace starter Pedro Fernandez of the Dominican Republic dominated on the mound, cruising through six scoreless innings before giving up a run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the seventh inning. He gave up only three hits and walked two batters in a 93-pitch outing, giving his Taoyuan-based team an edge. Offensively, the Monkeys’ leadoff batter Lin Li hit Brothers starter Brandon Leibrandt’s pitch over the center-field wall in the game’s first at-bat,
The tiny village club of Mjallby AIF on Monday won the top tier Swedish soccer league with a 2-0 away win at IFK Gothenburg, sealing the title with three rounds of matches remaining. Jacob Bergstrom and Tom Pettersson scored the goals in Mjallby’s 20th win in 27 league games. Mjallby has a population of fewer than 1,400 people and plays in an outdated 6,000-seat stadium with stands weathered by the winds of the Baltic Sea. “It’s a huge relief to experience this now, a relief with three games to go,” said Anders Torstensson, a former army officer and secondary-school teacher who coaches the
Jahmyr Gibbs was offered oxygen on the bench after a 78-yard run. He turned it down. Clearly, he was not out of breath. Gibbs on Monday scored on a long sprint in the second quarter, a five-yard spinning plunge in the third and accounted for a career-high 218 yards from the scrimmage to lead the Detroit Lions in a 24-9 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “You felt like this was coming,” Detroit coach Dan Campbell said. “This has been building.” The Lions (5-2) bounced back from a loss as they have done flawlessly for nearly three years, extending their NFL-long streak of 51 games
Rafael Leao on Sunday shot AC Milan to the top of Serie A with a brace in a 2-1 win over ACF Fiorentina who were enraged by the “scandalous” awarding of the penalty that decided the game. Portugal winger Leao pushed Milan one point ahead of local rivals Inter, SSC Napoli and AS Roma with a coolly taken spot-kick, given for what looked like a soft foul on Santiago Gimenez by Fabiano Parisi, with four minutes remaining. That goal capped a fine first league start of the season for Leao and came after he drew the hosts level with a brilliantly struck
RSS