Every night when we are watching sport news in news round-up, the reporters will spend a lot of time in reporting foreign countries’ football league’s news, for example, England premier league, Italy series A league, etc. However, when they talk about the Hong Kong local football news, they just spend thirty seconds to one minute to report it. Is it meaning that the local football is not good anymore?The golden age of Hong Kong football is around 1970’s to 1980’s, at that time, every single match which kickoff at Mong Kok Stadium must be full, for example, South China vs. Happy Valley, a lot of so call “die hard fans” will cheers to the team which they support, audience were enjoying to watch the games. The atmosphere of the Hong Kong football was great at that time. A lot of large companies or globalize companies would like to sponsor the football teams. When the teams had capital, they can employ some good players to play for the teams. Due to the improvement of technology in 1990’s, many foreign countries league was shown in Hong Kong , audience had choice to choose what kind of football they wanted to see. Many of them though that foreign football league was better than Hong Kong’s, so they started to not go to watch local football. Since less people watch Hong Kong league, the large companies and globalize companies quit to sponsor other famous foreign teams rather than local teams, therefore, local teams are hard to survive without capital, the attraction of Hong Kong League was decrease. In these few years, most of the people thought that Hong Kong football is not good anymore, foreign league was the best. In my opinion, foreign league is better than Hong Kong league, but, it does not mean that Hong Kong football level is not good, it is just the “package” of the foreign football league is better than Hong Kong. For example, the England premier league, the teams tried to shape their players into famous stars, such as C. Ronald from Manchester United, even some of the people do not watch football games, but they at least know who is C. Ronald. That is one of the examples why the foreign teams will success. Nowadays, Hong Kong people said Hong Kong football is not good, only foreign ones is the best. However, some of them never go to watch Hong Kong football games, they just heard the comment from others, and they change it to their own feedback and told this “comment” to those who also never watch Hong Kong football games. The local football will become bad if many of them keep this “comment” in their mind. If you watched the games and said it was bad, it is alright, because that is your own comment, but please do not say it is not good if you did not watch it! Go and watch it! It will not disappoint you.Last year, the chairman of South China put a lot of capital, found many companies sponsor them to get the league champion, finally, he did it. The important point was not South China got the champion, it was gained the audience’s attention, re-encourage people to focus in local football again. The team had capital to buy good players, people would like to see high-level football in Hong Kong, the package is now better than before, and so they went to watch it again.
Based on the success of South China, other teams are going to put more capital in local football this year. This action can draw people’s attention, and also, the companies can promote themselves too. the value of local football become higher again!
Football, audiences, companies, these three things seems had an inter-relationship to each other, if missing anyone of them, I do not think local football will work. Fortunately, these three things are becoming bigger and bigger today.
