By Mark Baber
June 18 – A poorly conceived marketing campaign for China’s World Cup qualifiers, which included a poster saying “don’t underestimate black skin, yellow skin, white skin Hong Kong” has led to accusations of racism, an apparent apology from the Chinese FA (CFA) and a sharpening of tensions between the mainland and Hong Kong fans.
A series of posters were produced for the Chinese FA featuring China’s World Cup qualifying opponents on the theme of ‘Do not underestimate the opponent’. The content of the posters, intended to be light-hearted, caused a furore among Hong Kong residents, seeing the Hong Kong poster as a racially based attack on the multi-ethnic identity of their team.
In their defence the CFA said they were highlighting Hong Kong’s cosmopolitan nature, and that the “open and inclusive” city had made the team an “international brigade”.
The Hong Kong FA responded to the poster with one of their own which says:
Don’t let other people look down (on you)
Our soccer team has black skin, yellow skin, and white skin,
The goal is the same to fight for Hong Kong,
You are Hongkongers so you must support us!
As a flavour of the CFA campaign, the poster for the Qatar qualifier states: “playing such a wealthy team you better be prepared,” while the poster for the game against the Maldives asks whether they are proud or arrogant for wanting to get through the group in second place at China’s expense.
With public opinion in Hong Kong unhappy over the issue, Brian Leung Hung-Tak, chairman of the Hong Kong Football Association (HKFA), said to Commercial Radio on that Lin Xiaohua, vice chairman of the CFA, had apologised over the phone about the poster saying that the designer of the posters was a “French artist” working for a mainland marketing company and the Chinese FA had not checked the posters before they were distributed and posted to a Chinese FA account online.
The apology and explanations, which had been kept under wraps for a number of days, appear unlikely to assuage feelings among Hong Kong fans, who have already begun to show a similar degree of respect to the Chinese national anthem “March of the Volunteers” (which they officially share with the mainland) as Scottish fans show for the “God Save the Queen” English national anthem.
Hong Kong faces China in Shenzhen on September 3, with the return meeting on November 17, with a diverse squad which may include a number of mainland-born Chinese players, Cameroon-born Jean-Jacques Kilama, England-born Jaimes McKee and Jack Sealy, Ghana-born Christian Annan and Godfred Karikari and Nigeria-born Festus Baise.
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