The summer months are usually a bit quieter for local football fans, but that's all changed over the past few days as four English Premier League teams are currently visiting Hong Kong – Manchester City, Sunderland and Tottenham Hotspur for the Barclays Asia Trophy this week, and Manchester United for an exhibition match on Monday. The presence of so many big-name stars has created huge excitement in town.
As you will know, I'm a big football fan myself and I was among the crowd at the Hong Kong Stadium on Wednesday night for the first leg of the Barclays Asia Trophy. Despite a torrential downpour in the afternoon, there was almost a full house, although the sodden pitch made conditions rather difficult for the players. In the first match, Spurs and Sunderland were still able to play some quite exciting football, with Sunderland winning 3-1. In the second game, Manchester City fielded a lot of their best-known stars but found it difficult to break down a spirited defensive performance by local champions South China, who had vociferous support from the crowd, and eventually ran out winners by a slender 1-0 margin.
I remembered that two years ago I was also in the stadium for the same tournament. So did for a few of my colleagues in the Club. Some of them told me afterwards there were local fans talking to illegal bookies over the phone checking out odds offer on the matches. It's a far from ideal situation because patronising illegal or offshore betting channels can lead to many social problems, and also means revenue lost to the Hong Kong community.
We know the public demand for betting on these matches is there, and many of the Club's customers and friends in the local sports media have asked why we couldn't offer betting on them ourselves. In fact we asked for permission from the Government, but we failed to obtain permission to offer bets, despite the fact that hundreds of bookmakers offered betting on these matches, including those in Macau and even sports lottery in mainland China.
It’s worth to note that around 70 percent of our current turnover in football betting, came from various e-platforms. With local pools being unavailable on this occasion, this situation may increase the risks for local people to find ways placing bets on these matches. Our intention of offering pools on these matches is not driven by a significant profit, as related pools would not be very profitable. We view it as our mandate to channel a public gaming demand and to offer a comprehensive service to our customers, which both are in line with our direction in legalised football betting operation.
Anyway, the four participating teams in the Barclays Asia Trophy will play off for the championship and third place tomorrow. Quite a few star players like Sergio Aguero and Jesus Navas of City, and Gareth Bale of Spurs, did not feature on the first day of the competition, so I'm sure that many Hong Kong fans will be eager to see if they play a part tomorrow. I'm certainly looking forward to the action.
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