Football: Hong Kong Premier League chief backs limited VAR use, promises fair competition
- Premier League will employ VAR technology for first time in rejigged 2023-24 season – but it won’t be a wholly level playing field
- ‘We cannot cover one hundred per cent of matches with VAR, which people might say is not fair. But, overall, we think it is,’ HKFA official says
A senior Hong Kong football official insisted partial use of Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology would not compromise the integrity of the forthcoming Premier League campaign.
VAR was used for the first time in the city during the Manchester United Under-16s’ victory over a Hong Kong U18 side at Mong Kok Stadium on Wednesday.
But clubs will have to wait until Eastern’s meeting with Kitchee at the same venue on September 2 – the third week of the new campaign – for the technology’s Hong Kong Premier League introduction.
Hong Kong Football Association chief executive Joaquin Tam cited a Fifa law for the delay. He revealed plans for every member club to contest at least seven matches where VAR is employed during 2023/24 – but stopped short of guaranteeing a wholly level playing field.
“We cannot cover one hundred per cent of matches with VAR, which people might say is not fair,” Tam told the Post.
“But, overall, we think it is. Every team will have the same percentage of games covered by VAR … although there is no perfect schedule, out of the 11 teams, maybe two will have six games [with VAR] and two could have eight games, because of the venue arrangement.
But there is an effort for it to be seven games for every team.
“We have 110 matches in the season and because of the difficulty of fitting in fixtures, sometimes we have three games in one day. VAR can accommodate only two.”
Tam was talking at the launch of the 10th Hong Kong Premier League campaign, with defending champions Kitchee to open the season against Tai Po in Mong Kok on August 19.
And he is confident VAR will act as a force for good in the city’s top division after officials learned from teething problems experienced by major leagues adopting the technology. The Hong Kong Premier League has sought advice from fellow competitions and leaned on the expertise of Fifa, world football’s governing body.
“We did a lot of consultation with different regions and tried to gain knowledge from other areas, especially in Asia,” Tam said. “We cooperated with the league in Singapore [where VAR made its debut in February this year] and we will be in Vietnam very soon.
“We invited Fifa experts to help us smoothly implement the system. The process started in April and there was three months of training [for officials].
“VAR is a very important upgrade for Hong Kong football. Every club likes it and it will increase the attractiveness of the game. All football lovers want technology and it will promote a fair game.”
Hong Kong’s initial VAR hub will be located in a rented commercial building in Kowloon, said Tam, who will reveal plans for a long-term venue “in time”.
It blamed the delay on two people in the competition department leaving in June, and having to accommodate Hong Kong’s participation in the Asian Cup, beginning in Qatar in January, as well as September’s Asian Games and qualification matches for the 2024 Under-23 Asian Cup in the same month.
The league will shut down on December 17 for the Asian Cup and resume when Tai Po host HK U23 on January 27, although the competition restarts in earnest with a full fixture list the following week.
The final round of matches is scheduled for May 26.
