Editorial | Sporting chance is one to take carefully
- The holding of an important regional football competition would help restore Hong Kong’s positive and safe image, but residents must be assured that players and officials will abide by coronavirus rules
Hong Kong’s sporting footprint is not large, especially without the World Rugby Sevens and local football during the pandemic. This only seems to increase the appetite for sporting fare.
The proposal for Hong Kong to create a sporting bubble that would enable it to host an important regional football competition is therefore exciting. It would help restore the city’s positive and safe image amid much negative publicity in recent times.
But it does raise tricky issues, apart from the uncertainties created by a new cluster of cases.
Travel restrictions, quarantine and social distancing have disrupted international and domestic sport. Special arrangements for certain events naturally arouse envy in places denied their usual diet of sport, the most notable example being the recent Australian Open tennis tournament.
02:22
Coronavirus outbreak forces Hong Kong Rugby Sevens to be postponed
Global audiences watched as players flown in by special chartered flights, pampered in hotel quarantine and transported under tight security, competed in front of big crowds. Such privilege has also aroused extreme annoyance among ordinary people denied equal treatment in getting back to their own countries.
