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Kai Tak Sports Park: questions swirl as deafening silence surrounds what future holds for Hong Kong’s new stadium
- Operators and government silent on plans for the venue, the centrepiece of the HK$30 billion publicly funded park set for completion in 2024
- Only events earmarked for facility are some National Games sports in 2025, and the Hong Kong Sevens
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Over the past decade Hong Kong has pumped tens of billions of dollars into its athletes and sports facilities. As 2024 approaches, we take a look at what that has been spent on, and whether it is providing value for money. In the first of a three-part series, Tom Bell and Paul McNamara look at the HK$30 billion Kai Tak Sports Park.
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Questions surround the future of Hong Kong’s new Kai Tak Sports Park, with officials overseeing the HK$30 billion publicly funded project unable to identify plans for its use, months before its expected completion.
After years of political wrangling then delays in its construction, the park has a revised timeline of being completed by the end of 2024, and opening the following year.
Its centrepiece, a 50,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof and flexible pitch system, will be used for China’s 2025 National Games, and is expected to be the new home for the Hong Kong Sevens.
But the government, the park’s operators and the agency responsible for bringing in events have all declined to reveal how they plan to regularly fill the state-of-the-art facility, at a time when the city is struggling to match regional rivals such as Singapore and Macau in attracting the world’s best athletes and entertainers.
The interest generated by Hong Kong’s forthcoming match involving Lionel Messi’s club Inter Miami, tickets for which sold out within an hour, offered a reminder of the value of visits by global stars.
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