Opinion | What should have happened in South Korea with Hong Kong protest song blunder – and what should happen now
- Certain local commentators seemed only too happy to punish players for not knowing the music was offensive
- But if they hadn’t noticed, these are professional athletes – not protesters – who for many represent the best promise of our city
As a former tournament manager for Asia Rugby whose responsibilities included running many sevens tournaments in South Korea, I would like to clarify what should have happened last weekend.
When I ran Asia’s rugby competitions across more than 20 countries and regions, it was a basic operational requirement to ensure anthems and other national symbols were in place and properly displayed. Over hundreds of games, I always listened to the anthems with the host union before play started.
As early as 2015, teams were asked to submit anthems before the Series. As Asia Rugby has now confirmed, this was also the case with the Hong Kong team this year.
From that point on it was Asia Rugby’s responsibility to ensure they were played correctly, a basic and vital task it has admitted failing to carry out.
This is not just an indictment of its operational acumen, but displays a certain lack of political and cultural sensitivity given the long-standing issues in Asian sport around the display of the Chinese Taipei Olympic flag.
