• Around Town Home
• What's On
• Features
• 
• 
• Bookmark this site

Read our other features:
Life on the fast track
Iron man
Riding Tall
Dream team
The Paralympics: A short guide
Jumping for joy
Eight things you didn’t know about the Equine Capital

Jacky Kwong and Semi Iafeta are two of Hong Kong’s most accomplished athletes. At a local level, each has risen as high as possible: to the captaincy of his athletic squad – Kwong with the men’s volleyball team and Iafeta with the national rugby team. They lead teams that represent Hong Kong at international competitions.

Both were introduced early in life to their sport. Kwong’s first forays on the volleyball court were encouraged by his parents, former pro volleyball players in China. And Iafeta says that, like many in his native New Zealand, his parents got him started on rugby soon after he learned to walk. Coincidentally, both men are semi-pro athletes who in their other lives teach in local grade schools.

But the similarities end there. Volleyball and rugby occupy very different positions of prominence in Hong Kong. Though volleyball has recently captured greater local interest arising from the Chinese national teams’ successes, the sport has yet to receive the financial backing in Hong Kong that rugby has long enjoyed.

The 2008 Beijing games present an opportunity to examine how sport is funded in Hong Kong. Some may ask why a first-world city of seven million has produced in its Olympic history only two medals – 1996 gold in windsurfing at Atlanta and 2004 silver in table tennis at Athens. (To compare this with the summer Olympic medal hauls of similar- or smaller-sized populaces, Bulgaria has won 207 medals to date, Denmark 163, Norway 135, Jamaica 42, and Lithuania 11.) Sporting success cannot, of course, be measured strictly by medal tallies. But the first Olympic Games hosted on Chinese soil help raise the question: how does Hong Kong support its best athletes?

A tale of two sports
Since 1976, for every year but two, the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union has organised the Hong Kong Sevens. The tournament’s full name is the Cathay Pacific/Credit Suisse Hong Kong Sevens, but simply mention ‘the Sevens’ and no one will have any doubt what you are talking about. It is Hong Kong rugby’s most prestigious annual event and the city’s most raucous public sporting experience. For three days in late March, the best sevens rugby teams on the planet descend on Hong Kong Stadium. Tens of thousands of fans, many from overseas, attend.

Multimillion dollar revenue from the Sevens helps fund a large portion of the Hong Kong National Rugby Team’s budget. Iafeta says the tourney’s high profile makes it easier for rugby to get introduced to future players and fans. “The Rugby Union are doing a great job promoting the sport,” he says. “Awareness of rugby is moving up quite well. The percentage of people playing and amount of parent involvement are increasing.”

As semi-professionals, Iafeta and his teammates get an allowance to defray their training and travel costs. “It’s not much, but we’re not doing it for the money.”

Iafeta adds that the future of rugby in Hong Kong has gotten even brighter with a recent plan to develop young players. “The Rugby Union have taken steps to elevate the game by identifying six or seven players in their early twenties to train full-time.”

In contrast, the Volleyball Association of Hong Kong operates at a much lower scale. The combined 2007 budget for the men’s and women’s teams was $200,000. The amount was intended to cover both indoor and beach volleyball seasons, as well as coaching and international travel expenses for both squads. “We don’t have enough money,” says Kwong, who says paying out-of-pocket is normal for VAHK staff and players. “It’s hard for us to raise our standard of play. I think the government can do more to promote our sport.”

Local interest in volleyball appears strong. Earlier this summer, Hong Kong hosted the 2008 World Women’s Volleyball Grand Prix and drew thousands of spectators to see national teams from China, Cuba, Italy, and Japan. VAHK coaching director Kwok Kin-chuen adds that, in each of the last two years, more than 3,000 people have signed up to compete at recreational-level events.

Despite these signs of growth, neither the men’s nor the women’s semi-pro squads has a permanent training site. The two teams enjoy some booking priorities compared to the general public, but not always. All facilities are administered by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, one of several bodies that support Hong Kong sport.

The meaning of elite
There are currently 74 national sports associations, or NSAs, in Hong Kong. NSAs act as local governing bodies for their sport and liaise between their respective international federations and the Hong Kong government.

Yet when it comes to cultivating top talent in Hong Kong, no group plays a more pivotal role than the Hong Kong Sports Institute. Formerly the Hong Kong Sports Development Board, the HKSI was established in 2004 to identify and develop elite sports talent that has the potential to excel at the highest international levels. The HKSI, led by Chairman Eric Li, reports to the Secretary for Home Affairs. With an annual budget that exceeded HK$130 million the last two fiscal years, the HKSI represents the deepest pockets in town for world-class athletes.

According to the HKSI’s 2005-06 annual report, its most recent on public record, the majority of its budget comes from government allocations called subventions. Other HKSI funding comes from private contributors, such as the Hong Kong Jockey Club, as well as commercial and sponsorship income. Every two years, HKSI’s Elite Sports Committee, comprising 19 members from the sport, education, and business sectors, conducts a multi-year process to review which NSAs might be considered ‘elite.’ To be officially designated elite is to become eligible for HKSI’s most generous training grants.

The Elite Sports Committee’s points-based review is driven by athletic performance results. In other words, how well a team or athlete fares at internationally important competitions, such as the Olympics, will determine the HKSI’s decisions on who is “elite”. Not surprisingly, elite status is highly coveted. Depending on the funding scheme, an elite athlete is eligible to receive as much as HK$32,500 per month. The money may be spent towards coaching, training, and travel.

At present, eleven Hong Kong sports enjoy elite status: badminton, cycling, fencing, rowing, squash, swimming, table tennis, tenpin bowling, triathlon, windsurfing, and wushu. Athletics, also known in sport circles as track and field, and tennis were once classified as elite sports but were dropped based on recent performance results.

HKSI’s Rainnie Ip says the group’s total budget surged from $97 million to its current $130 million following SAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang’s October 2006 policy address urging increased support for Hong Kong sport. Ip would not comment on whether the recent HKSI budget increases amount to unique allocations in preparation for the 2008 Olympics and 2009 East Asian Games (also to be held in Hong Kong), or indicate a long-term, higher funding commitment to sport. “That is difficult to answer because that is a policy question,” Ip says. “I can say that to nurture athletes takes a very long time.”

The HKSI has enacted other funding schemes. World-class athletes of sports that do not earn elite status may still qualify for funding. The maximum individual payouts for this category is HK$135,000 per year. Recipients so far include snooker player Marco Fu and squash player Rebecca Chiu Wing-yin, among hundreds of others. And earlier this year, the eight University Grants Committees of Hong Kong announced measures to allow elite athletes to defer their 2008-09 academic studies and extend their period of study. The hope, Ip explains, is to encourage athletes not to abandon their studies for the sake of athletic achievement.

In the meantime, non-elite NSAs in particular face a more pressing dilemma: how to empower their athletes to attain elite results with less-than-elite funding.

Ivan Chao of the Hong Kong Handball Association says that that while 40 per cent of his budget is funded by government subvention, private sponsors must cover remaining expenses. “Money is very important for the development of sport,” Chiu explains. “We don’t just train our top athletes. To encourage interest, we hold matches and publicise local matches for the young and old.”

Bianca Luk of the Hong Kong Tennis Association says facilities are a major priority for her sport’s nearly 4,000 members and the countless more keen to get serious in the game. “We need more courts for training. We have a huge development programme that is often compromised by lack of court time.”

Other obstacles exist, Luk says. “Children are pushed hard by their parents in education and cannot always find time to train. We also lose players to US colleges on lucrative tennis scholarships which essentially means they are not available for representative matches [for Hong Kong] for three to four years at the peak of their playing power.”

Mark Chiu of the Hong Kong Triathlon Association, whose athletes receives elite training grants, summarises the torn sentiments of many NSAs: “The government’s extra funding is a good step forward, but funding is still our main problem.”

Read our other features:
Life on the fast track
Iron man
Riding Tall
Dream team
The Paralympics: A short guide
Jumping for joy
Eight things you didn’t know about the Equine Capital