Eric Fok, right, vice-chairman of Hong Kong Football Association, speaks to Straight Talk's Eugene Chan, Dec 6, 2022. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Hong Kong Football Association Vice-Chairman Eric Fok is on the show this week. Fok says Hong Kong football can flourish under the existing plan to provide more resources for young players. But in order to “create value”, commercial viewership must increase commercial value: “When you get commercial value, you can have more partners and that can help provide funding.”
Check out the full transcript of TVB’s Straight Talk host Dr Eugene Chan’s interview with Eric Fok.
Chan: Good evening! You're watching Straight Talk with Eugene Chan. I'm sure many of you have been watching the World Cup these past two weeks. And this evening, we are going to talk about when we can expect to see our national football team at the World Cup finals. So, our guest this evening is the vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Football Association, Eric Fok. Fok has been on the board of the Hong Kong Football Association since 2015, when he became its youngest member ever. He has also been elected vice president of the East Asian Football Federation earlier this year. Welcome, Eric!
Fok: Thank you, Eugene, for having me on this show.
Chan: Eric, your family has quite a legacy for the football scene in Hong Kong. Your late grandfather, Dr Henry Fok in 1970, when he was the chairman of the Hong Kong Football Association, actually invited Pele and the Brazilian Santos team to Hong Kong, at a mere sum of over a million dollars at that time, when one of the flats only cost $60,000, so I was told. And that created quite a scene in Hong Kong? So, is it all these family legacies that have made you really interested in developing football for Hong Kong?
Fok: Well, good morning, and thank you for having me. I think for myself, it has been a privilege to be, you know, under this so-called sporting family. But for myself, it's a personal passion. And I personally play football myself. And when you have an interest, it's an honour for me to serve the football community. So, I hope to share more of my thoughts going forward, and also bring more positivity to Hong Kong football development.
Chan: Eric, we were involved in a church event many years ago. And I remember you actually play on the football field. Do you still play your favourite position as a forward now in normal matches?
Fok: Yes, I do. I do try to play as much as I can. I think with the World Cup right now, I think everyone would like to enjoy the football on the screen, but also enjoy football on the field as well.
Chan: Great! Since you mentioned, I mean, World Cup is quite a fever now in Hong Kong. What would be your favourite team to win this World Cup this year?
Fok: I think for myself, we often talk about the development of the Chinese football. And I'm sure everyone's dream, and being a Chinese, is to host the World Cup in China one day. But with that said, currently I'm rooting for the English football team. And I hope that they will get good result in this tournament,
Chan: I'm sure the viewers are going ask you for some tips. Who would you tip for the four finalists for this upcoming football final?
Fok: Well, it's hard to say I think this World Cup has many new elements. First of all, it's being held in Qatar, which is the first time the World Cup is being held in the Middle East region. Secondly, I think the timing of the World Cup will have an effect on the result. Because this year's World Cup, due to the criteria of the Middle East, it's held in the winter. So, with that said, I think that anything can happen. So, what we've seen is that many of the unpredictable result has occurred in the last few weeks, I'm sure everyone has witnessed and going forward, all the best with all the teams going forward. And we look forward to a fantastic final.
Chan: Right. And I believe you will be going along with other delegates to Doha for the finals as well.
Fok: That's correct, because I think I have a dual capacity. One is representing the Hong Kong Football Association. But at the same time, I sit on the Asian Football Confederation and East Asian Football Association. So, I hope going forward is other than just attending the matches, we actually have a lot of executive meetings. And with my dual role, I hope to do more for Hong Kong football. And one is to get better results for the Hong Kong team. And in order to do that, we need to have more exchanges and more matches against international teams that we can bring back to our Hong Kong team and our Hong Kong fans to enjoy going forward.
Chan: Eric, it's very good to see sort of young and sort of energetic leader for football because football is said to be one of the most popular sports in Hong Kong. Do you agree?
Fok: Well, I think it's the most popular sport, not just in Hong Kong, but also globally. We can see that with the World Cup, the commercial and also the interest around society that it generates and, going forward, we would like to bring more of the game to Hong Kong. So, Hong Kong can play more of a sporting role going forward on the international platform. I think in Hong Kong has many of his criteria to do this. Historically, Hong Kong has had a big development in football at the same time, not just on the pitch. Going forward with the opening of the Kai Tak 5000-seater stadium in 2024. Hong Kong will be better equipped to host more international games. But also, more importantly, not just on the pitch, but off the pitch. I think Hong Kong being a cosmopolitan city, for example, in 2019, I hosted the first ever AFC annual Football Awards, which is known as the Oscar of football, where all the football stars came to Hong Kong. And we were able to award football development and also contribution to football development in Asian Football Association. So, going forward, I think Hong Kong has a lot of role to play. And we look forward to that.
Chan: Right. You know, many viewers will often watch television on European football, English football, even Spain or Germany. But for locally, I mean, how many… I mean, since you said Hong Kong, football is quite popular amongst a community, how many teams are there? We know there's a Premier League, but do they… do you have any formal leagues in schools as well?
Fok: Well, I think the overall development, Hong Kong fans look at one of the criteria as a Hong Kong team’s competitiveness on the global stage. I think in Hong Kong football, we're very excited to share that next year in the upcoming Asian Cup, Hong Kong has managed to qualify for the Asian Cup after being absent for 54 years.
Chan: 54?
Fok: So, this is something that we are able to achieve. And I think it's encouraging for our Hong Kong team. Secondly, in terms of Premier League, we currently have 10 teams, from two increased teams from eight last year, so that we can see that there's more teams coming through. And especially in other than the Premier League, the first division, second division, third division, we're seeing a lot of the district teams are playing a key role. So, with that said, we hope that we can get the committee behind the football development and attract more interest, at the same time attract more talent.
Chan: Eric, just now you mentioned about I mean all this good news of Hong Kong, which we will bring back some of the history in a minute. We had Dr Geoffrey Ma here last week. And then we talked about cricket. And he said that it's very important to have coaches, especially good local coaches. So, I remember watching football for quite some time, and they are foreign coaches and foreign players. So, it's that foreign element, still an important factor, do you think in the future of development of Hong Kong football?
Fok: I think the foreign players is a catalyst towards improving the Hong Kong football. But more importantly, I think that grooming local talent is a key factor going forward. So, I think that we have to have a balance because by having foreign players, you can attract more audience. At the same time, the local league will have a better standard. By that hopefully the local players can learn from them and prove themselves. But at the same time, then we also have to groom more of local players because we have to ask ourselves a question, the local league, its end goal is “what is our target?” And I think one of the targets or missions we try to do is to groom more local players so they can represent Hong Kong on the international stage to get better result. So, with that said, I think that Hong Kong team qualifying for the Asian Cup after being absent for 54 years next year is very encouraging for Hong Kong football. And I hope that more players and more youth development can be developed so that we have a stronger team going forward.
Chan: I'm sure many viewers are like me that we've been watched, following Hong Kong football for many years, until the recent 10 years where the interest sort of drained away. Because in the past, I remember in 1985, Hong Kong actually did beat China and reached a qualifying round of the of the World Cup. I mean, that was fantastic times and we actually had a big match between South China and Seiko that we have to queue up for the stadium. So how well is the national team, I mean the Hong Kong team doing at the moment into the world ranking? Are we having any successes, or are we on the upward trend again?
Fok: I think that currently the Hong Kong, our FIFA ranking is 145. And at the same time, we are getting results on the international stage as I mentioned with the Asian Cup, but I think Hong Kong football or not just football, all sports are a long-term development. We can see that from the Tokyo Olympics, our Hong Kong Olympic team got very good results, and that brought this society to have rallied a lot of support. And actually, all the athletes have been going through the youth development for over 10 to 20 years. So sporting merits doesn't come overnight. It's a long-term development. And going forward, I think Hong Kong has very good equipped to have good support for Hong Kong team. Number one with the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Hong Kong Football Association Football Centre, which is a home for our Hong Kong training, was opened in 2018. And just recently this year, we've just celebrated 1 million users. And most of them are Hong Kong team, our Premier League teams and our division teams, but at the same time, it gives the community more of a chance the access to football. And I think this is the key to football development.
Chan: Eric, before we go to the break, I want to ask you a very direct question, I'm sure many viewers have been asking: our mainland has over 1.4 billion people, I'm sure because some great players, but for some reason, we haven't appeared in any World Cup football final yet. And I mean, of course, Hong Kong never had a chance of being qualified as well. So, when do you see that might happen?
Fok: Well, I think that this is a long-term goal. I am sure with the 2008 Olympic being held and the Winter Olympics being held in China recently, I think the World Cup is also one of the agendas that China would like to host. But at the same time, I think that China has a long-term plan. And next year, they originally were going to host the Asian Games… Asian Cup, sorry. So, they have built many, many infrastructure and stadiums. And also, China has also expressed an interest to host the 2031 Woman's World Cup. So, with that said, I think that China has a development plan. And we both look forward to hosting the World Cup in China in the upcoming future.
Chan: Eric, we have to take a break now. Viewers, please stay with us. We'll be right back.
Chan: Welcome back. Mr. Eric Fok, the Vice Chairman of Hong Kong Football Association is with us this evening. And we have been talking about football in Hong Kong and on the mainland, and when we can expect to see our teams in the World Cup Final. So Eric, you talked about there is a long-term goal, and we know that President Xi is a keen fan of football, and also we have, what we call, a development plan for China’s football, that was released in 2016. And they have got 3 stages, we are now at end of the 1st stage now, the 2nd stage is basically move on to a stronger team. One of the goals for the men’s team is to be Asia’s best in 2030, even as the world's best in 2050. It’s a very big goal ahead, do we have a chance?
Fok: Yes, I think… you know China has a long-term development plan, just like the Olympic dream. I remember China, you know, participated first time in the Olympics and winning its first medal only in the 80s. So I think that in 2008, China hosted a very memorable Beijing Olympics, and we were the country that won the most goal medals and medals overall. So it was just a short… you know, less than 30 years reform. So with that said, I think that before you can see that there's a lot of singles and doubles medallists from China, but I think going forward they will be putting more resources in team sports. And I believe that bringing the World Cup home and also having a good national football curriculum and result is also the China dream that we all hope for. And this is something we are thriving for.
Chan: Right. Eric, what will be… sort of the main difficulties you think we will be facing in terms of challenges to make that happen?
Fok: I think in terms of Hong Kong, our main biggest obstacle is venues, because in order to have more venues, we can do more training, and only with more training, we can improve ourselves. And I think there is a lot of synergy with mainland China, definitely through the Greater Bay Area, because this is one of the areas that our football comes in and discuss in, is that although Hong Kong has limited land, how can we use our neighbouring cities to expand the football development and have more football pitches in order to improve and exchange. And going forward, with the China football development plan, I think that it’s the allocation of resources. And going forward it is how do we have more youth development by having more resources to support more people joining football leagues and football school competitions, in order to have more talent, having a more pool would mean that you have a better selection team. So I think that is an overall development, but with that said we hope to encourage more youth to join our football. And by having a more football population, we can have a better team going forward.
Chan: When you mentioned both Hong Kong and mainland, I am sure being with the Chinese cultural background, I mean study or academic excellence is always what most parents are striving for their kids. Do you think there is a changing in sort of a trend now that families are more willing to have their children invest in sporting like football?
Fok: Definitely, I think that there is a big opportunity and also a chance right now because I think as parents are becoming more encouraging and supporting their kids into the sports sector, I think we have to have a stable, sustainable business model for athletes. The goal is very simple, I think that with the attitude of the new Hong Kong government, you can see that sports is being restructured into a new built bureau. And now it is under the Culture, Sports, and Tourism Bureau, and with that said I think that sports has a new pathway for it to develop. I will give you a few examples. First of all, I think that by having this new bureau, the government is setting a new blueprint for sports development and football development. And from it being an elite sports, a community sport, and also mega-event sports…
Chan: It was a 3 emphasis before.
Fok: From the previous government, this acts as a new basis for this new government. But on top of this, they've added 2 new elements of how do you make sports more professional and also more sustainable going forward. So what does sustainable mean? Sustainable means that how do we engage other than government funding, we can encourage more commercial entities to support. And with more commercial entity and society getting behind sports and football, we can actually have more resources allocated to football clubs, and also more importantly, football players.
Chan: Right.
Fok: And so with that said, I think that will give football players a career to develop and give them, give parents more encouragement to help kids get involved with sports. And this is one thing that we are tackling right now.
Chan: Right. As you said earlier, I think youth training is one of the fundamentals.
Fok: Exactly.
Chan: And it takes time, as you said, I am sure everyone would agree. And being a young player yourself, playing like 20 years, what specific suggestions will you have for a really coordinated youth training?
Because we talked about youth training all the time, I mean like decades ago, every team had a preparation team.
Fok: Right.
Chan: But it is not really coordinated.
Fok: Correct.
Chan: So what suggestion would you have for the industry in terms of youth training?
Eric Fok, vice-chairman of Hong Kong Football Association, attends the Straight Talk show on TVB, Dec 6, 2022. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Fok: This is a very important question. We did ask ourselves this recently and we had to come up with some concrete plans. I think that youth development is a key component of our Hong Kong football. And although all the Premier League teams have their youth teams, 2 years ago the Hong Kong Football Association launched an initiative, and it's called the “Hong Kong U23”. And this is a youth development plan where we actually are comprised of a young football team that plays in the Hong Kong Premier League. With the goal of number one, there is no foreign players, so it is all local players; Secondly is most of the players are all under 23; And then lastly is there can only be 5 players that over 23 to help these young kids develop. So this is a specific youth development plan, where we tackle youth players but more importantly, local players, so that they have a chance to play in the Premier League every week. And then they can improve, and so that the Hong Kong team going forward, will have more elite youth players. So I think that is a very meaningful programme and I am very honoured to support and to develop this initiative.
Chan: Right. Are those players professionals? Full-time professionals? Or they are still part-time?
Fok: They are professionals at the same time. Many of you know, the World Cup is going on right now, but also with the Paris Olympic and Hanzhou Asian Games. Actually Olympic and Asian Games uses under-23 players only in a team. So this actually, Premier League team, which is the “Hong Kong U23”, we are actually grooming a team and players that is actually going to representing Hong Kong at Olympics and Asian Games coming up. So with that said, we hope to have… get them prepared through the Premier League, so when they represent Hong Kong in major international competitions, then they can hopefully get result and at the same time give them a platform to represent Hong Kong and do us proud.
Chan: Right. Eric, you just said that Hong Kong now, we are going to have a sort of a program that not only as a youth team, but be able to play in the Premier League and the parents are getting more ready to support them. So all these are good factors.
Fok: Yes.
Chan: So what else do you think… what will be the most urgent issue that you think will be needed to be tackled on top of these 2 matters we just discussed?
Fok: I mentioned that on July 1st we had the new Hong Kong SAR government, and which Hong Kong Football Association tries to implement the sports policy. At the same time, I think through this new bureau being set up, we were able to talk to the football stakeholders to see what concerns they have, how can we improve it, and how can we communicate closer with the government and stakeholders. And one of the top key concerns is venue provider because as we know, Hong Kong land is scarce, so that there is limited football pitches that limits the amount of time that each team can train, whether it is men’s, youth’s, women’s, or futsal. So with that said, I think going forward, we have big plans and one of the plans is can we suggest the government to have an initiative where we can turn many of the industrial buildings’ rooftops into more futsal pitches? So that people can have more access. Secondly, a few years ago, the government has launched an initiative to how to turn many of the multi-usage, including 7-a-side football pitches around Hong Kong into 5-a-side pitches. So that that would be recognised as futsal, which is the 5-a-side, so that we can have an international standard, so that Hong Kong can actually be more competitive. And lastly, I think that Hong Kong football can look at the Greater Bay Area and look beyond our borders. With that said, there's many football pitches and training facilities within 1-hour radius. And going forward, we will be studying and seeing how can we help our Hong Kong football development, especially the football team and youth training to use our neighbouring football pitches, so for them to have allowed access to let them train and improve our game.
Chan: Right. Eric, so now not only we have the parents, we have the youth program, now we have the government support, I think I must ask you the last question.
Fok: Sure.
Chan: Where is all the money coming from? I think commercial sponsors is very important, look at golf, look at tennis, big prize money.
Fok: Yes.
Chan: Do we have enough commercial sponsors for Hong Kong football in particular?
Fok: I think that the key to sports and football development is equating value. Once you value, then you can have the commercial element. So going forward with Hong Kong football, we hope to work closer with our media partners. This year I have a good news to share with everyone, that through our football Premier League, we are working with our online “On.cc” partners, and at the same time for the first time this season, we are working with RTHK, which is providing direct free TV for many of our football Premier League games, and also working with TVB this year for the first time, providing our HKFA Cup live free coverage. So that will be generating a lot of interests, and I believe that once you have commercial viewership, then you can create value. And when you can get commercial value, you can have more partners And that can help provide with funding.
Chan: Right.
Fok: So going forward, I think with the commercial value, with government support, and also with Jockey Club, and lastly with FIFA funding, together that makes a pool of resources to help our Hong Kong and club teams.
Chan: Right. I must say that when I was an RTHK board advisor, this was something we pushed for, and I’m very happy to see the football now being taken telecasted by RTHK. So many thanks to Eric for sharing your insights into football, both here in Hong Kong and on the mainland. We hope that the local football sector will be able to overcome the challenges he has outlined today. And we look forward to seeing our 5-star red flag being raised in future in international football events, such as the World Cup finals soon. Have a great evening and good night!