Tenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Race and identity study is a heated topic in football (soccer). A multi-races national team is common in many countries except East Asia. However, in the past few years, plenty of naturalised players from Africa, Europe, South America and mainland China have joined the Hong Kong(HK) national football team. As a result, it triggers heated debates among public on them. This research investigates the public arguments on interpreting the identity of naturalised players. It finds out that football fans in Hong Kong are open to the participation of naturalised players. Performance of naturalised players is the only concern. The attachment between fans and naturalised players are purely instrumental. Yet, an open attitude to the participation of naturalised players does not mean that fans admit them as Hong Konger. Fans have set up several primordial rules, including the capability on speaking Cantonese, familiarity of the HK culture, rooting in HK, be born/raised in HK, to judge the Hong Kong identity of naturalised player. Surprisingly, race is not a concern for most fans because they argue that Hong Kong is a city with lots of immigration and emigration hence it is normal to have people with different races. In the meanwhile, they also hope naturalised players to have a basic understand on the politics and laws of Hong Kong and fulfill their civic responsibility.