By Andrew Warshaw
April 26 – One of China’s leading teams, big-spending Guangzhou Evergrande, face an investigation after the club’s fans unfurled a provocative banner in an Asian Champions League match describing Hong Kong’s independence movement as ‘poison’ and carrying the words: ‘Annihilate British Dogs’.
The incident happened in the closing stages of the 6-0 win at Hong Kong’s Eastern, infuriating home supporters who tried to confront those responsible but were held back by security officials.
Although Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule from Britain in 1997, it retains much of its own administration and tensions between the two countries remains.
According to Asian Football Confederation (AFC) rules political slogans are “strictly prohibited before, during and after” games and that “the Match Organiser, together with the Security Officer and the chief police officer or Stadium security officer, shall prevent any provocative action being taken by spectators inside or in the immediate vicinity of the Stadium,” including “provocative banners.”
The banner in question, which stated: ‘Annihilate British Dogs, Extinguish Hong Kong Independence Poison’, was displayed in the section where around 700 visiting Guangzhou fans were seated.
Hong Kong’s South China Morning newspaper quoted a Hong Kong FA source as saying: “We informed the match commissioner of the banner content, and he has put it in his report to the AFC.
“This banner is not allowed as they never applied to display it, but we don’t know how they got away with the bag search. We will have to investigate.”
Eastern’s executive director Peter Leung Shou-chi told the same paper that one of the home side’s coaches was “slammed in the face by people from Evergrande” in the tunnel at half-time, when the Chinese side led 2-0.
Tensions were high in the build-up to the game as is commonplace between teams from Hong Kong and China, and Leung confirmed Eastern would submit a report to the AFC.
“We were greatly concerned about the matches against Guangzhou after the draw was made and put in place a lot measures, but still some other things were out of our control. We are very disappointed to see things like this happen as it brings bad reputation to the game.”
An AFC spokesman told Reuters: “The AFC is waiting for the match commissioner’s report and then the AFC will make a full assessment of the facts.”
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