tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post7866935439777827040..comments2024-02-01T20:52:24.827+08:00Comments on CEO 的話: It’s time to develop a High Performance Football Culture in Hong Kong 發展本港高效足球文化的合適時機Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12311816601866550472noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-37297353796425429882013-11-21T12:12:36.321+08:002013-11-21T12:12:36.321+08:00Thank you for your reply Mark and being the 2nd HK...Thank you for your reply Mark and being the 2nd HK fan in Abu Dhabi, I would have thought you have every single right travelling to UAE for the game as CEO of HKFA in company's expence, you have certainly learnt the culture and being cautious here :) ......RegardsAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07389522944710476450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-72256906774075752982013-11-20T11:33:45.016+08:002013-11-20T11:33:45.016+08:00Dear Alec,
This is a good idea and I will refer it...Dear Alec,<br />This is a good idea and I will refer it to our Marketing Department. As you say it will be up to the individuals concerned but 'away' support is always appreciated. I was in UAE myself to support the team (and before anyone says anything, I paid for my own flight and accommodation) and it was a very intimidating atmosphere. Some more HK fans would have helped to balance things up a bit.<br />Regards<br />Mark<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12311816601866550472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-71845113620906774752013-11-19T18:24:52.439+08:002013-11-19T18:24:52.439+08:00Dear Mark
I just have this in my mind when I read ...Dear Mark<br />I just have this in my mind when I read there was "one" travelling fan from HK went all the way to Abu Dhabi to support our national team, I'm just thinking there must be quite a few HK people working overseas, as I know quite a lot of countries have HK companies such as HKTDC, HKETO, Cathay Pacific or HK Business Associations etc, could HKFA contact these HK organizations or Associations in advance and ask them to attend and show support when our national team plays over there? at the end of the day, surely it is their desire whether they want to go or not, but at least HKFA can do your part and try to encourage the "local" HK people to support the national team abroad.<br />This is just a thought of mine.<br />Cheers<br />AlecAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07389522944710476450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-53444216222532676752013-10-29T21:14:15.567+08:002013-10-29T21:14:15.567+08:00Dear Mr. Sutcliffe
Thanks for sharing the i...Dear Mr. Sutcliffe<br /> <br /> Thanks for sharing the information.<br /><br />Lo King-wah Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07676212462557301131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-68555243178917971102013-10-25T09:59:09.977+08:002013-10-25T09:59:09.977+08:00Dear King-wah,
I really wish I could answer your q...Dear King-wah,<br />I really wish I could answer your question definitively but to be honest I don't know. The decision to build the Training Centre is outside of the control of the HKFA. The facility is a must if football is going to improve so from our perspective we want the centre as soon as possible. We are ready, willing and able to play our part in delivering this project and we have provided a number of iterations of a business plan to the powers that be. The reality is that it is still possible for a spade to be put in the ground in 2014 but the planning process is going to have to speed up.<br />Regards<br />Mark Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12311816601866550472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-46586441827381808782013-10-24T18:05:26.674+08:002013-10-24T18:05:26.674+08:00Dear Mr Sutcliffe
Just want to know if it i...Dear Mr Sutcliffe<br /><br /> Just want to know if it is still realistic to expect the construction <br />work of the football training centre in Tseung Kwan O to commence<br />in 2014?<br /><br />Regards <br /><br />Lo King-wahAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07676212462557301131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-19405907859197902032013-10-24T11:27:41.708+08:002013-10-24T11:27:41.708+08:00Dear Lai Chi,
Thank you for your comprehensive and...Dear Lai Chi,<br />Thank you for your comprehensive and interesting comment. If as you say there are hard courts standing empty then I agree these should be used for football. In our new Strategy there are plans to develop futsal, which is a five a side sport ideally suited to smaller hard courts. We are also developing a new grassroots football programme for children between 6 and 12. This will be based on a small-sided games approach, so when you are 6 and 7 you play 4 v 4 or 5 v 5. When you are 8 and 9 you play 7 v 7 and when you are 10 and 11 you play 9 v 9. This system is nor common place in other countries because it is part of a systematic development approach that is age-related and introduces the skills and techniques in a fun environment. All of these programmes can take place on small hard surfaces. Hopefully these initiatives will help to fill the courts again and encourage young people to play football as well as basketball. The HKFA should also engage more with the separate 'Mini-football Association that promotes 7 a side football for adults.<br />I also completely agree that football needs to be an integral part of school life. I understand there are constraints in Hong Kong regarding space. I remember when I was at school (yes, I can remember that far back!). We kicked a ball about before school, at break time, at lunchtime and after school. Our PE lessons were dominated by football. If we were good enough we played for the school teams and then the District school teams. It was a good grounding. We are trying to develop closer working relationships with the HKSSF and working together we might be able to increase the numberof competitions. Our new strategy also includes recommendations on coach education and we want to encourage school teachers to take our level1 and level 2 courses so they can teach football in the schools. We also intend to put our own coaches into the schools so that they can help with PE lessons particularly at Primary schools were there may not be specialist PE teachers.<br />I must admit, I have never heard about boys not wanting to play football because it might stunt their growth! I've never heard anything so ridiculous. Have they ever seen Peter Crouch! (if people don't know who he is - just google it). I have solutions for most things to do with football by changing this perception stumps even me.<br />Anyway, I really appreciate your contribution to this blog.<br />Regards<br />Mark Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12311816601866550472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-61767181641859571292013-10-23T15:49:15.169+08:002013-10-23T15:49:15.169+08:00(CONTINUE)
We need a renaissance in our college f...(CONTINUE)<br /><br />We need a renaissance in our college football which is as important as rebuilding our professional league. I suggest the HKFA to study Japan’s college football development and system. We need to infuse grassroots football knowledge into every schools in Hong Kong; every primary schools, secondary schools, and Universities. We need to help and encourage every schools to set up their own college football team, provide them with knowledgeable coaches to train their school kids’ basic skills, increase the teenagers’ interest in football, and mature their skills and playing tactics through organized tournaments. <br /><br />We also need to encourage and assist the schools in setting up their own management and promotional team; we have to teach the school teachers and the school kids how to run, promote and support their own school team as if it is a small professional football club, we can help them setting up their own school cheerleading team, help them create their own fan base to get their fellow classmates to turn up in their school matches and support their team. <br /><br />I think the HKFA should reform the Hong Kong college football league as if it is a professional football league, making it well organized and popular, use the school competitions as a platform to promote grassroots football, training talents, and discover exciting young talents. The HKFA has to “commercialised” the college game, getting big sponsors to backup the college games (ideally from sponsors who has major influence on young people, for instance Nike, Adidas, Coco-cola, McDonalds etc), the HKFA also has to promote it to mass medias like TV channels, newspapers and large internet discussion sites, get them to cover, promote and broadcast the college competitions, the target is to get more teenagers to play football during their school years, make them feel that it is a cool thing to take part in college football and feel proud to be a college football stars admired by fellow classmates. <br /><br />However, lets say if dreams do come true, assume that the HKFA can successfully make most if not all Hong Kong schools setting up their own football teams, but we still face the lack of grass pitches to satisfy their need, how can we solve the problem? I think the key to the successful reformation of Hong Kong college football lies in the effective use of the emptied seven-a-side hard surface football pitches all over Hong Kong. The HKFA can arrange or encourage the school teams to do their training sessions on hard surface pitches, may be the HKFA can even arrange some of the junior or lower level college competitions on seven-a-side hard surface pitches, or may be the HKFA can set up several tournaments; the eleven-a-side grass pitch tournament, the seven-a-side hard surface pitch tournament, and the five-a-side hard surface pitch tournament.<br /><br />How about the structure of the future college league? How can we provide a platform for over 300 school teams to compete? May be we can set up our structure resembling the European professional football leagues; we have 18 districts in Hong Kong and each district has about 30 to 50 schools present, assuming each school has its own school team taking part in our future college tournaments, within each district we can divide their school teams, through competitions, into different divisions, just like in England they have the Premier league, the championship and the division one etc, and of course promotion and relegation systems are present. The top teams in the first division within each district can take part in the pan-Hong Kong tournaments to compete with other top school teams in other districts, we can even have two pan-Hong Kong tournaments like the European Champions league and the Europa league so the mid-table teams in each district also has chance to play in pan-Hong Kong tournaments.<br /><br />To conclude, I think it is crucial to reform our college football, commercialize it, modernized it, popularise it, and making good use of our seven-a-side hard surface football pitches all over Hong Kong.<br /><br />(END)Lai Chihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09845086622595564767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-13363976368639217552013-10-23T15:43:13.537+08:002013-10-23T15:43:13.537+08:00(CONTINUE)
I think the main reason of this cool d...(CONTINUE)<br /><br />I think the main reason of this cool down lies in the lack of opportunity for secondary school students to expose to football within school. In Hong Kong, all secondary schools has basketball courts while only a few prestigious schools has football pitches. Secondary school students can always expose to basketball during school breaks, lunch times and after schools because it just come in handy. The school rules also plays a part in hammering football’s popularity within school; most secondary schools had banned playing football within school because the teachers think that it is dangerous to have the ball being kicked around, they think it might hit people or damage stuffs. Apart from school rules, another factor not to be ignored is a long existed rumor among Hong Kong teenagers; many Hong Kong secondary school students believe playing football can hamper the development of ones height, and since all the guys want to grow tall so as to attract girls, many teenagers switch to play basketball, which explain why many students were enthusiastic in playing football in their primary school days but most of them switch to basketball after they get into secondary school. Of course the notion of playing football can make one grow short is non-scientific and without prove, but it is peer-pressure and some kind of superstition among Hong Kong teenagers. Hong Kong people are dedicated crowd followers and they are terribly afraid of doing something different from the crowd.<br /><br />In Asia, unlike Europe and South America, the key player in youth football development is NOT the football clubs, it is always the SCHOOLS, the secondary schools in particular. The success of Japanese and Korean football is not only due to their establishment of J-league and K-league, it is also the result of their strong high-school and University football tradition. I believe the key to rescue HK football lies in how much we can re-inject football culture into Hong Kong’s primary schools, secondary schools, and University. We have to create a trend, a fashion for young people to follow, so as to turn things around.<br /><br />Hong Kong’s college football competition is organized by the Hong Kong Schools Sports Federation HKSSF and it is plain to see that they are doing a poor job in promoting and organizing college football. I think the HKFA has to take back the right of running Hong Kong’s college football and not let the ineffective HKSSF ruining our game. I imagine it will be a tough task to negotiate with those rigid bureaucrats in HKSSF, but if we can win the control back, its going to be a game changer.<br /><br />(CONTINUE)Lai Chihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09845086622595564767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-42877579728202416612013-10-23T15:37:35.158+08:002013-10-23T15:37:35.158+08:00Mr Sutcliffe, thanks for sharing your views on how...Mr Sutcliffe, thanks for sharing your views on how to rebuild HK's football culture, it would be great if all those things work out nicely.<br /><br />Talking about football culture in HK, I would like to share something I've seen recently which is related to this topic.<br /><br />Every day I have to take a long bus ride from Tuen Mun in New Territories, pass Kowloon, and head south down to Tin Hau in Hong Kong Island. Along my bus journey I have passed over 10 seven-a-side hard-surfaced football pitches in different parts of New Territories, Kowloon and Hong Kong island, it was 6pm in the afternoon, and among all those seven-a-side hard surface football pitches I passed, most of them were empty; no one was playing football, occasionally there were a few people playing but they were all grown up men aged over 40s. <br /><br />On the contrary, in the basketball courts next to all those football pitches, the basketball courts were all crowded. Teenagers, youngsters, secondary school students still in their school uniforms were crowded in the basketball court playing basketball. Many youngsters were even sitting around the court and waiting for their turn to play, it happened next to those empty football pitches, and it happened in all the hard surface pitches all over New Territories, Kowloon and Hong Kong Island! What it tells us is this; Hong Kong youngsters are no longer interested in playing football, they have switched their interest to basketball.<br /><br />I understand all the complaints and concerns over the lack of grass pitches in HK, but we do have many nice hard surface football pitches everywhere and very few people are using them nowadays. <br /><br />Historically, as a result of our crowded living condition and limited living space, Hong Kong’s unique football culture were developed in the small seven-a-side hard surface football pitches instead of the grass pitches. Our great football stars in the past spent their youth playing football on hard surface pitches like the famous Southorn playground pitch, Victoria Park pitches, and Macpherson playground pitch. In the good old days, our hard surface pitches used to be full of people playing football, just like the crowded basketball courts today. It signified the popularity of our beloved sport, and now it signify the downfall in its popularity. The notion that modern Hong Kong people (especially teenagers) are football crazy is nothing but an illusion; It is true that Hong Kong people are crazy in watching football (only in foreign football), but quite a lot of these people watch it for the sack of gambling, and very few modern Hong Kong people (especially teenagers) actually play football nowadays. We no longer have a football playing culture among our youngsters.<br /><br />(CONTINUE)Lai Chihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09845086622595564767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-14045606447858600072013-10-23T12:59:59.467+08:002013-10-23T12:59:59.467+08:00Dear Bruno,
I absolutely agree that 'youth dev...Dear Bruno,<br />I absolutely agree that 'youth development' is fundamental. The subject of my blog was 'high performance'. These two things are of course linked but I couldn't hope to cvover the whole development continuum in one blog. Our draft five-year Strategy covers all aspects of football development and what needs to change in terms of youth development to eventually generate players worthy of a high performance system. The document is 137 pages long at the moment because as you say it is difficult to be succinct when there is so much to say and so much change to be implemented.<br />You will be pleased to hear that one of the main recommendations of the youth development chapter is a 'Soccer School Accreditation Scheme'. Indeed we have already drafted the criteria. Once approved we hope to roll out this programme as soon as possible.<br /><br />Your comments are as ever appreciated and noted.<br />Regards<br />MarkAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12311816601866550472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-32827893657870042013-10-23T01:18:59.620+08:002013-10-23T01:18:59.620+08:00Dear Mark and Bruno,
I would like to say I all ag...Dear Mark and Bruno,<br /><br />I would like to say I all agree in your above mentioned points, but it is only limited in the discussion on the Soccer field", why don' we look beyond on it? <br /><br />As a local citizens, social sciences professional and soccer lovers, I want to remind that all the development forces in Hong Kong is still dived by the captialism and "tradion customs". <br /><br />In Hong Kong, not only for soccer , but also in all sports , people will just treat as a "leisure" activity Professional ? Never! but it is so ironic that Hong Kong maybe a place that the most convenicent to receive as many as good quality live match.<br /><br />So my idea is we should link our whole development to the city development, which is the only way out to change the citizen mine in it. only they think this is a possible tools or platform to have a bright furure, no matter in terms of money return or non-monetary return, they will show support to it.<br /><br />So my crazy ideas is can we set a National Soccer School( with a corridnation with Education Bureau) to make sure that they can have a balance development in soccer professional and academic training, just like some big europe professional club youth development. Tell you a truth, if we can make the children parents think there is a furture for those children, they must support. Then , why don;t we to make sure that they can have a platform to have a quality acdemic training, and the rest of time to provide a continously and regular training for them?<br /><br />Regards,<br /> Matthew LiuAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05640014232137170437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-11934821096910178732013-10-23T01:18:09.814+08:002013-10-23T01:18:09.814+08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05640014232137170437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2578658460757089715.post-44850586815661764072013-10-22T18:53:49.740+08:002013-10-22T18:53:49.740+08:00Dear Mark,
After reading this post and also the P...Dear Mark,<br /><br />After reading this post and also the Phoenix Project I went back to my HK Football Research to add some new data. We came up with many similar ideas and scenarios but the focus, in my opinion, is the Youth Development.<br /><br />I totally agree when you wrote that youth development is not coordinated across HK. In such small place we would expect better organization, coordination, evaluation and control on it.<br /><br />My opinion is that are way too many “recreational football schools” or “underground football schools” that are playing an important role in destroying the football culture in HK. These “schools” are looking only for money and they really don’t care if the kids are talented or not, if the kids will have a pathway on football or not. <br /><br />Why is it important? It is important because these “schools” are using the scarce facilities around HK that should be available for serious football development. These “schools” don’t have professional and licensed coaches (many of them don’t even have the right to work in HK). The result is awful, low level training sessions that bring some problems: we are losing talented players to other sports, mainly rugby. Some of these kids don’t want to play football anymore.<br /><br />I’ve been scouting and watching training sessions around HK for more than 3 years. Happy and surprised to see some great work but horrified with the huge amount of these “underground” schools. And some of these “schools” have lots of kids every week.<br /><br />My advice is to create a “HKFA Quality Stamp” that would be awarded to the schools, academies that meet the standards. Would be something like “HKFA INSPECTED AND APPROVED” and the schools should match or exceed the standards in different criteria as outlined in the “HKFA Requirements Book”.<br />If the schools can’t match the requirements they would have some time to re-sit the test and would be placed in the non-approved schools. Depending on the case, some schools should be shut down (including employment for “coaches with no right to work). <br /><br />The HKFA should create a department focused only on that and walk all around HK checking the schools by surprise in a first moment and then on a determined date for tests. Also all the schools should be registered in the HKFA with the list of the current coaches working for them. Any changes should be immediately communicated. All the schools / academies approved or not should be listed in the HKFA website for public consultation.<br /><br />Through this project more facilities would be available, the control and coordination would be effective and the football culture in HK would be more reliable. We are talking about the interests of HK and not about profit of these “black market schools”.<br /><br />You are 100% right when wrote “…it’s time to prioritize access and change the current quota system and allocation policy”.<br />Does that mean that we should turn our back to recreational football? The answer is, of course, no. But we need a better balance. There are many concrete courts that would accommodate these recreational schools and would link with the introduction of futsal.<br /><br />I know it is a long post but I have much more to say about it all.<br /><br />Regards<br /><br />Bruno CannavanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com