Hong Kong footballers given go-ahead for Asian Games in Japan

Hong Kong football has won its battle to compete in the Asian Games this year, allaying fears that the city teams would be condemned to the same fate as their exiled basketball counterparts.

The Football Association of Hong Kong, China (HKFA) has been petitioning the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) since it emerged that the 16 men’s teams that competed in this year’s AFC U-23 Asian Cup finals would occupy the Games spots, while the 12 women’s places would be filled by the countries contesting the ongoing Asian Cup in Australia.

Those criteria would have excluded Hong Kong, whose men’s team were semi-finalists in the most recent Asiad in 2023.

On Thursday, however, the HKFA released a statement declaring that they had “received official notification yesterday from the OCA confirming that the Hong Kong, China men’s and women’s representative football teams are approved to participate in the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya”. The Japanese tournaments begin on September 14.

The South China Morning Post has been told that Eric Fok Kai-shan, the HKFA chairman, and his father, Timothy Fok Tsun-ting, the vice-president of the OCA and HKFA honorary president, began pressing for Hong Kong’s inclusion soon after technical handbooks from the Aichi-Nagoya organising committee were issued to National Sports Associations last December.

In the HKFA release, Eric Fok said that his organisation had been “in close communication with relevant parties regarding participation in this year’s Asian Games”.

Click here to read article