Opinion | Why Kitchee chief Ken Ng Kin could end up eating his words after taunting Eastern over their Champions League struggles

Kitchee boss Ken Ng Kin claims his side will go better than domestic rivals Eastern in next season’s Champions League, but is he underestimating the quality in the regional competition?

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Kitchee’s Fernando Pedreira celebrates with fans after winning the Hong Kong Premier League. They will represent Hong Kong in the AFC Champions League next season. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 3:31pm, 12 May 2017Updated: 3:31pm, 12 May 2017

Sorry, Ken, but if you believe Kitchee would have done any better than Eastern in this year’s AFC Champions League, you would have been sorely disappointed.

Domestic champions Eastern rightly became Hong Kong’s first-ever AFC Champions League participants this season, a moment that should have been celebrated as a huge achievement.

Instead, the start of the campaign was spoiled by reports of squabbling over whether or not Kitchee should have been allowed to take up Eastern’s place in the competition after the then-Hong Kong Premier League champions initially decided they couldn’t afford it.

The end now has been spoiled by harsh criticism of Eastern, who picked up just one point from their six games, conceding 24 and scoring just one, and claims from Kitchee boss Ken Ng Kin that his side will do better in 2018 having won this season’s Premier League title.

Pull the other one. Let’s see in 12 months, but the group table does not and will not lie and Kitchee will also find the step up to the AFC Champions League a significant leap, because it is.