Hong Kong ace Marco Fu blasts government over refusal to lift ban on under 16s from snooker halls after 8pm
- Government wants to protect ‘immature persons’ from ‘adverse affects’ of staying late in billiard establishments ‘which will affect their studies’
- Refusal to lift restriction ‘outdated’ and ‘contrary’ to emphasis on promoting sports in the community says city’s snooker chief Law
Two months after the Hong Kong Masters set a world record with more than 8,500 fans attending the final, the government dealt snooker a huge blow by prohibiting under 16s from entering billiard premises after 8pm, with Marco Fu Ka-chun condemning the move in a scathing social media post.
Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, the lawmaker representing the sports functional constituency, asked earlier this week whether authorities would consider relaxing the time limit for young people under 16 years old to enter and stay in licensed billiard establishments.
But Secretary for Culture, Sports, and Tourism Kevin Yeung Yun-hung’s reply seemed to shut the idea down.
“The government will need to take into account a number of factors [about relaxing the restriction], including the need to protect immature persons under the age of 16 and avoid having them staying in billiard establishments after 8pm, which will affect their studies and cause adverse effects,” Yeung wrote in response to Fok’s question.
Hong Kong snooker star Fu, who produced a sensational maximum break to defeat the former world champion John Higgins in October’s Hong Kong Masters semi-finals, hit back at the government’s reply with a lengthy Facebook post.
“Why do the authorities encourage the public to watch the Hong Kong Masters while restricting teenagers’ hours of use of billiard premises, labelling billiards as a ‘bad sport’?” Fu, the runner-up in the Masters, said in the post.
