Hong Kong soccer has won its battle to compete in this year’s Asian Games, dispelling fears that the city’s teams would suffer the same fate as their exiled basketball counterparts.
The Football Association of Hong Kong, China (HKFA) has been making requests to the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) since it emerged that the 16 men’s teams that participated in this year’s AFC U-23 Asian Cup finals will hold places for the Games, while the 12 women’s places will be filled by countries participating in the ongoing Asian Cup in Australia.
Those criteria would exclude Hong Kong, whose men’s team was a semi-finalist at the most recent Asiad in 2023.
On Thursday, however, the HKFA released a statement announcing that they “received official information yesterday from the OCA confirming that the men’s and women’s football teams of Hong Kong, China have been approved to participate in the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya”. The Japanese tournament starts on September 14.
The South China Morning Post has been told that Eric Fok Kai-shan, chairman of the HKFA, and his father, Timothy Fok Tsun-ting, vice-president of the OCA and honorary president of the HKFA, began pushing for the inclusion of Hong Kong immediately after the technical manuals of the Aichi-Nagoya organizing committee were released to the National Sports Associations last December.
In the HKFA release, Eric Fok said that his organization has been “in close contact with the relevant parties regarding participation in this year’s Asian Games”.
