The Civil Affairs Bureau of the FA's New Five-Year Plan is not without its role

01 point of view

Written by: Review Editor Room

2020-07-14 16:37

The FA officially applied for funding for the next five-year plan at the end of last month. The Home Affairs Bureau has agreed to the funding in principle and recently received a question from the Legislative Council. The FA was revealed to have chaotic governance, and some Members criticized the unsatisfactory performance and still received funds as inappropriate. The local football team has to be on the road again, and the FA, as the helm, must change its head. Therefore, the role of the government is not only to check the appropriation, but also to focus on monitoring the reform of the FA and disturbing the chaos anyway.

The FA’s "New Five-Year Plan" has recently been approved by the Civil Affairs Bureau Task Force. The plan mainly covers seven goals, such as promoting the Hong Kong team to the 2034 World Cup, promoting the progress of the men’s and women’s teams, promoting national football, and strengthening financial resources. Sustainability and governance. The government agrees in principle to approve the funding, but will only reserve RMB 19.67 million per quarter in the next three quarters, which is a significant reduction of more than RMB 5 million per year from the previous maximum of 25 million yuan. Among them, after reviewing the past performance of the FA and the audit of the FA’s work, the Civil Affairs Bureau decided to reduce the funding for the recruitment of a total of 26 subsidized positions in the "New Five-Year Plan" from 18.45 million per year to 15.6 million, and requested the FA to submit a report to the authorities every six months.

Civil Affairs Bureau must oversee FA reform

The Audit Commission disclosed a number of issues governed by the FA, and found that the composition and operation of the board of directors are quite confusing. Some senior executives may be absent from the board meeting for a long time, and even their audit committee may pass the FA with only one member or even no meeting. For now, this alone shows that the FA governs the chaos, not to mention that the FA has failed to meet its standards in terms of multiple performances. Some Members bluntly stated that according to this performance, the FA should have been given a "red card" for a long time, believing that the Civil Affairs Bureau continued to allocate funds to the underperforming FA. Although the authorities have decided to adjust the salary of the FA senior management to show disciplinary action, the salary subsidy for the senior management of the FA will be reduced in the latest funding. Among them, the chief executive has the highest reduction (estimated to be about 10 to 30%), which is absolutely desirable However, executive remuneration can still be supplemented by other allowances, or even paid out of the FA reserve, so whether the effect of punishment is still unknown.

Shao Jiazhen, a member of the Legislative Council, described the FA as "negative." (Photo by Yuan Zhihao)

The governance of the FA is not good, but the application of funding from the government is "unused", and the perception is far from ideal. In addition to reviewing the performance of the FA to ensure the proper use of public money, the government must also help the internal reform of the FA to eradicate the causes of chaos from the source. It is true that the Civil Affairs Bureau emphasizes that the performance of the FA will be regularly reviewed, but whether this will give the public sufficient confidence is another matter. For example, the Civil Affairs Bureau decided to hand over the review of the operation and internal monitoring mechanism of the sports associations to the Hong Kong Association and the Olympic Committee. However, the FA and the Hong Kong Association Director both acted as Huo Zhenting, even though the review will be established by the Hong Kong Association 3. The supervision committee composed of independent professionals always has potential conflicts of interest. It is even harder to convince the public that the FA’s work can be properly monitored. The Civil Affairs Bureau should think about the arrangements in the future.

It is also important that the Civil Affairs Bureau should urge the FA to reform the composition of the board of directors. The background of the FA’s board of directors is mostly irrelevant to the sphere. There have been voices in the community advocating the addition of several types of stakeholders, such as players, coaches, leaders, and even fans, so that the FA can re-land. On Monday (13th), the Home Affairs Committee of the Legislative Council also passed a motion requesting the FA Board to increase key stakeholders. However, FA Chairman Bei Junqi still has no intention to change the current composition of the Board, insisting that the board has heard many voices, It also emphasized that the six-hour meeting of the board of directors “opened” earlier is proof that the party intends to improve governance. However, as we have pointed out, the problem of FA governance is too serious to be solved by the Board of Directors, let alone lead the progress of the FA and even the overall football, continue to improve the structure of the FA directors, and join the development of the familiar sphere. Stakeholders, this is the best practice without any harm, the FA can not choose to stand still and refuse to change, and supervising the FA reform is precisely what the Civil Affairs Bureau should do.

The World Cup journey begins with one step

In addition to FA governance, the government’s collaboration is also indispensable to implement the goals of the new five-year plan. The FA's new five-year plan abandons the policy of chasing the improvement of actual rankings in the past, instead focusing on youth training and promoting the Hong Kong team to advance to the 2034 World Cup final week. The new plan can be regarded as an aggressive and ambitious blueprint, but whether the plan can be implemented, how much effort and support the government is willing to put is also crucial. For example, the above goals all show the importance of youth training. To this end, it is necessary to provide enough hardware (such as a stadium, training center). However, the government is still passive. On the one hand, it hopes that the club will find land on its own. The Bureau will only provide assistance afterwards, but will not actively help the Club to find land. On the other hand, the Bureau has also failed to reach a viability because of the current Tseung Kwan O Training Center. Financial arrangements, refused to add more football training centers on Hong Kong Island, Northwest Kowloon and the New Territories.

However, since there is a need for a breakthrough in football, it is not enough for the Football Association to propose a vision. The Government must not spare resources, and must be willing and decisive to invest in the future of the Hong Kong Football Association in order to bring about change. The Hong Kong team will advance to the World Cup final week in 2034 or it may sound like a castle in the air, but if the government is willing to provide assistance, it can at least help Hong Kong take a big step toward this goal.

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