Happy Valley faces winding-up gut kick

A former player for first division club Happy Valley Athletic Association, one of the oldest in Hong Kong, has applied to the high court to order the winding-up of the football club.

English midfielder Charlie Scott filed the application with the court on Friday for an order for Happy Valley Football Club to be wound up.

The case has been adjourned to December 6.

The 26-year-old joined Happy Valley in 2020, and participated in 22 matches, until 2021 when Scott and his teammates filed a complaint with the Football Association of Hong Kong, China, and the Labour Department over withholding of their salaries by the club.

After leaving Happy Valley, Scott has been playing for Kitchee Sports Club, which currently competes in the Hong Kong Premier League.

Scott was scouted by Manchester United when he was six, and joined its under-18 squad in July 2014.

After being released by United in 2018, Scott then bounced around the semi-professional tiers of English football, from Altrincham to Newcastle Town to Kidsgrove Athletic.

He had to work on a construction site to make ends meet and went through a depression before he came to Hong Kong in 2020.

His lawsuit comes ahead of an hearing for Happy Valley and its former convener, Chan Chi-sat, in a Kwun Tong magistrate's court on October 19 over 48 charges for withholding the salaries of 10 employees and football players amounting to more than HK$2 million.

Chan and the club said in August that they had repaid the salaries and planned to plead guilty.

But Scott was not included among the 10, which included Hui Ka-chuen, Tam Tak-hang, footballers Wong Chi-hong, Marco Cheung Chun-hin, Wong Ho-yin, To Chun-kiu, Tsang Chi-hau, Silva Da Silva Luciano, Severo Burkatt Mikael and Yu Ka-wai.

The club is also under a match-fixing cloud after 23 people, including a coach and 11 footballers, were arrested by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in May.