Football is taking centre stage in Hong Kong this week as three English Premier League teams, namely Chelsea, Aston Villa and Blackburn Rovers, have joined local league champions Kitchee to contest the Barclays Asia Trophy at the Hong Kong Stadium. In the two opening matches played on Wednesday night, Aston Villa defeated Blackburn Rovers 1-0 to enter tonight's final, while Chelsea joined them after thrashing Kitchee 4-0 in the second game.
Though I was in France on Wednesday, I still had the chance to see how the teams played as French television channels carried live broadcasts of both matches. In my view, Kitchee defended very well in the first half-hour, but given their immense difference in quality compared with Chelsea's superstars, it was always going to be difficult for them to hang in there for very long. I was not surprised to see them becoming outclassed by the hour mark.
All tickets have already been sold out long ago for this evening's final between Chelsea and Aston Villa this evening, which is sure to attract massive interest from local football fans and the betting public. After careful consideration, we made formal notification to the Home Affairs Bureau earlier this week to open local betting pools for this encounter between the two Premier League teams.
I understand from my colleagues that more than 130 overseas bookies, including most major offshore and online bookmakers in this region, opened betting pools for the two initial matches in Hong Kong on Wednesday. For tonight's final, there could well be even more. Given this extraordinary situation, we felt it only sensible to notify the Bureau that the Club intends to take bets on the match. Clearly, neither of the two reasons why we cannot normally offer betting on matches involving Hong Kong teams – namely integrity concerns and insufficient public interest – are applicable in the present scenario.
I can understand the Bureau’s rationale for not allowing the Club to take bets on the Wednesday’s match that a HK team (Kitchee in this scenario) is involved as it would create a precedent. However, regrettably and to my great disappointment, the Club was asked to seek special approval from the Bureau for taking bets on tonight’s match between Chelsea and Aston Villa. To me, it is a way of creating a change in the licensing conditions by restricting football betting to the entire tournament instead of just the individual matches which a HK team will participate.
I see such an interpretation not only difficult to comprehend but also in my opinion contradicts our football betting licence conditions, which state only that the Club is not permitted to take bets on a match that involves a Hong Kong team. It says nothing about tournaments in which a Hong Kong team also happens to be involved. Furthermore, if one would apply this logic that every time a HK team would play in a tournament, we would be required to seek approval for offering betting on those non-HK team matches in the same tournament, and it would mean we could not even bet on the World Cup as a HK team would be playing in the qualifying matches for the World Cup tournament!
With over 130 overseas bookies offering betting on the Barclays Asian Trophy and several local papers running information on their sports pages about the odds being offered by overseas bookies, there can be no doubt of the huge demand that exists.
Similarly in horse racing, I know that there was enormous interest among our local racing fans in last Wednesday's clash between top British horses Frankel and Canford Cliffs in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood – a battle that Frankel won emphatically with, in my view, one of the best mile performances I’ve ever seen. But again the restrictive framework did not allow us to simulcast this race live to Hong Kong.
Over the years, we have reiterated to the authorities that if we are not allowed more flexibility in meeting the local gaming demand and directing it to a regulated and responsible channel, it will be simply be taken up by illegal and offshore bookmakers.
Our sole motivation to offer betting on the Chelsea-Villa match was to address the significant local demand and avoid Hong Kong people's money from being drained to betting channels overseas. It is frustrating, to say the least, to see the lack of a legalised local channel result in a loss of betting duty to the public purse. It also affects the Club's surpluses, which are returned to the community through charitable donations.
From Christchurch to Calcutta, Cape Town to Chile, thousands of people will be betting on tonight's alluring match. It will be played at the Hong Kong Stadium, a venue that, ironically, owes its world-class sporting facilities to a multi-million-dollar renovation funded by the Club in the early 1990s. Yet amazingly, the Club, which is just half a mile from the stadium, is probably the only bookmaker in the world that does not offer betting on the match. And this is despite the game being played at TV prime time – 8.30 pm on a Saturday night – to enable as many local fans as possible to enjoy it.
Originally, we were planning to show a live broadcast of the final at our Off-Course Betting Branches. But we have now decided to shelve this plan as we don’t wish to see illegal and unauthorised bookmakers being the people to benefit.
In view of the situation, we have little choice but to cancel the plan to take bets on the match this time. I can only apologise to our many thousands of football fans who are keen to bet on this match, but now have no legal means of doing so. I hope you will understand that on this occasion, the situation is beyond our control. I do hope that if a similar situation arises in the future, we can revisit this anomaly in discussions with the Government - and use the opportunity to channel this huge public interest into long-term community benefits for Hong Kong.
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