Hong Kong teams need to think bigger – by looking beyond the border

The news that Eastern are paving the way to join the Chinese Basketball Association should be a signal to other clubs in Hong Kong that the time has come to embrace professional leagues on the mainland.

Playing in the CBA can only help to improve the standard of the sport in Hong Kong, and should, in theory at least, have a knock-on effect when it comes to the city’s team competing internationally.

There is nothing to stop Hong Kong wanting to make the Olympics in basketball, be it full court or 3x3, but wanting to do something and putting the structures in place to succeed are two very different things.

If success beyond Hong Kong’s borders is the goal for any serious sporting organisation locally – and if it isn’t then how serious can you be – competing against those better than you on a regular basis is essential. Eastern have at least looked beyond the city before, and their performances in the Asean Basketball League suggest the CBA is the next logical step in the club’s development.

But what of the rest? The likes of Siobhan Haughey and Cheung Ka-long have shown what the city’s best individuals are capable of, but its teams seem to have largely existed with the express purpose of beating their neighbours across the road, or at most across Victoria Harbour.

How much longer will it be OK for Kitchee, as one example, to waltz through the paper-thin challenge of football’s Hong Kong Premier League every year, battle manfully in the AFC Champions League every year and inevitably fail to progress beyond the early stages, every year.

Where is the move to have the club join the domestic pyramid across the border, or for a Hong Kong-based franchise to earn a spot in the Chinese Super League?

The national team have reached the main stages of the Asian Cup for the first time in 55 years, but there is little to suggest their campaign will end in anything other than glorious failure, simply because the gap between local and international football is Grand Canyon-esque in breadth and depth.

Certainly there are players in the squad who are good enough to perform at a higher level, and several do in the CSL. Surely a Hong Kong team playing in that league could help elevate standards across the board, and ideally would, eventually, form the basis of the national squad.

There is little danger of it impacting on the status of the Hong Kong

Football Association globally either, as the precedent for teams from one territory competing in the league of another has long existed in the UK, where Welsh clubs such as Cardiff City, Swansea City and Wrexham all play within the English league system.

At last count, the population of Wales was less than half that of Hong Kong, and they are playing at the World Cup in Qatar as we speak.

While direct comparisons are much like considering apples and oranges to be the same, there is a nugget of truth in there. Population size does not have to be detrimental to ambition, and if Hong Kong wants to succeed beyond the mediocre there is a pathway that can be followed. The city’s rugby bosses have recognised this, and there is change coming where the domestic game is concerned as they look to build a team capable of qualifying for a

World Cup in eight years’ time.

Given rugby is not as developed on the mainland as in the city, that vision could include Japan as one option, and a franchise in that league would certainly raise Hong Kong’s profile across the region.

Aside from the obvious benefits to the standards of Hong Kong’s teams, there is one more element to take into account: the new facilities being built at Kai Tak. A 21st-century stadium should not stand empty for 11 months of the year, and what better way to turn Hong Kong into a greater sporting hub than it already professes to be than to have professional teams call it home.

While Kai Tak’s 10,000-seat Indoor Sports Centre would fit the bill for basketball, the city should be aiming for high-performance local football and rugby franchises to grace the main 50,000-capacity stadium, perhaps as anchor tenants.

This would rely on a committed promotional effort to put more bums on seats than could fit into the new park’s 5,000-seat Public Sports Ground, which is earmarked for more modest local events. One would hope the top clubs are thinking beyond that in scale.

Again, it is a matter of ambition, and whether Hong Kong wants to settle for parochial backyard bragging rights and stagnation – or take on the world.

If Hong Kong wants to succeed beyond the mediocre there is a pathway that can be followed