Opinion | As China bans national anthem ‘disrespect’, how will Hong Kong football fans react in match just before key Communist Party meeting?
With impeccable timing, the team’s next big game is shortly ahead of crucial five-yearly meeting
Hong Kong soccer doesn’t loom large in the annals of world history. It barely looms in the annals of Hong Kong soccer history.
But when accounts of the post-handover decades are written, and especially chapters dealing with the increasing anger and discontent among the post-97 generation (and Beijing’s heavy hand towards them), football will feature prominently.
In the wake of the Occupy Central protests, anger moved to the football stands and the team’s World Cup qualification matches in 2015 became political events, with supporters booing the anthem before each game.
It attracted punishment from world governing body Fifa – and more importantly, it now seems clear, the ire of China’s power brokers.
