By Mike Chu
The passionate journey of Hong Kong football fans supporting their team overseas.
Watching the Hong Kong football team playing outside the city offers soccer fans an unique experience that many are willing to pour a lot of effort to rally behind the team with unwavering support.
Mocked by some fans as the ‘battle of the underdogs’, about 300 Hong Kong people travelled to Liechtenstein, which is a 12-hour flight to the city, to watch in person the friendly match on October 10.
Hong Kong eventually lost 0-1 to the host but supporters got the rare opportunity to light up the stadium with pyro, a firework commonly used by football fans in Europe and South America to show support, which is impossible in Hong Kong.
One of the 300 Hong Kong supporters was Carey Tsui, who has been supporting the Hong Kong team since the 1990s.
“Going to Liechtenstein costs us tens of thousands of dollars,” Tsui says.
He notes that fans are undeterred by money issues and that they are even willing to sacrifice more when deciding to leave Hong Kong to support their team.
Tsui also followed the team to Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan during the AFC Asian Qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, and their trip to Turkmenistan in June 2024 was not easy.
He adds that some travelling agencies in Hong Kong offered packages as much as HKD$30,000 that most of the fans could not afford.
Together with 18 other fans, Tsui eventually contacted a travelling agency in Turkmenistan, and they were granted visas only half a month before the match, which ended with a goalless draw. Hong Kong failed to advance to the next stage.
He adds that internet access is also very limited outside the fans’ hotels, which made contact with other supporters in Turkmenistan and with Hong Kong extremely difficult.
“Travelling to support the Hong Kong team was uncommon before the 2023 Asian Cup in Qatar, until we started making whatsapp groups for coordination. Finding travelling pals has been easier since then,” Tsui says.
The 2023 Asian Cup marked Hong Kong’s first presence in the tournament in 55 years. Some 500 fans went to Qatar to witness history. Calvin Choi Man-hou was one of them, and shares a similar view with Tsui.
“Fans bonded together after the Asian Cup. We started to realise that going on away trips is not as difficult as it might seem,” Choi says.
As the leader of a cheering team called “Chi Sin Lo”, which means ‘crazy man’ in Cantonese, Tsui said he has an emotional attachment to the Hong Kong team.
“Supporting Hong Kong is unique in a sense that they are representing my place of birth,” Choi says.
Hong Kong is not an Asian football powerhouse. Out of the 15 matches played in 2024, they have won only six of them. They have also never qualified for the World Cup.
But the team made some historic achievements in the past two years apart from qualifying for the Asian Cup.
In the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou, they beat Iran and qualified for the semi-final.
Number of fans supporting the team on home soil has not increased like the number of fans supporting them playing abroad however.
Only around 5,000 fans attended the friendly match between Hong Kong and Mauritius in the city in November 2024, while 12,000 fans attended the friendly match against Myanmar in 2022.
Ng Chi-hang, the leader of another fans group The Power Of Hong Kong, thinks more could be done to attract people rallying behind the Hong Kong team.
“The number of fans fluctuates based on the performance of the team, which is rare elsewhere. Fans in Europe keep on cheering despite the team having poor results,” Ng says.
“Building a dedicated fan base is essential in sports development, and Hong Kong football needs precisely that,” he adds.
Sub-edited be Jen Lam
