The beautiful game: Still a crucible for protest in Hong Kong?
Al Jazeera
Football has long provided an arena for protest in Hong Kong, but this Asian Cup has been quieter.
In 2019, as pro-democracy protesters marched through the streets of Hong Kong, Nathan Law could hear the pro-democracy songs almost everywhere he went.
At the time, Law was perhaps the highest-profile pro-democracy activist in Hong Kong. He had come to prominence as one of the student leaders of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, moving against plans to allow Beijing to veto political candidates to run Hong Kong.
He later co-founded a new political party and became Hong Kong’s youngest elected lawmaker, although he was later disqualified from office alongside other pro-democracy politicians, on the nebulous charge of not taking the oath of office properly.
But when the unrest returned in 2019, and as the streets again filled with protesters, another more unusual crucible for resistance came to the fore: the football stadium.
When the Hong Kong national football team played, the discontent from the streets was projected louder than anywhere else. Supporters would boo the Chinese national anthem, which was played on behalf of Hong Kong as it is officially a “Special Administrative Region” of China.
