stadium tussle puts Barca game up in air

Ayra Wang

Spanish football giants FC Barcelona announced that it has yet to finalize arrangements for the team's pre-season matches amid claims by local company Winman Advertising and Entertainment Group that Kai Tak Sports Park had rejected several requests to hold the Barca match.

"The club has yet to reveal its pre-season fixtures schedule for the 2025-26 season, with details such as venues and opponents to be announced in due course," the football club said yesterday.

Sources said the club had not yet decided whether to include Hong Kong as one of their stops for their pre-season tour.

It comes as Winman, which claimed to be the event organizer, said its bid to rent the venue at the park for the friendly fixture on July 27 was turned down.

Winman chief executive Wong Ho-ting said that the company has reached an agreement with Barca to arrange for multiple globally recognized players to join the match.

Wong said the company planned to invest more than HK$70 million to hold the event without government subsidies and urged the park to reconsider its application.

The sports park later responded that their request for application documents from Winman went unanswered.

"The park commonly does not comment on venue rental arrangements but we decided to respond under special circumstances," the park said.

"We did receive an inquiry from the company and requested the company to submit relevant application documents but have not received any yet," it added.

Winman stated that the company started negotiations with the park about the venue in October, but the park "verbally" rejected them last month.

It said the company continued to follow up on the issue through emails until December 20.

Subsequently, the company received an email from the park on Wednesday, in which the park apologized for failing to send out an email attached with the application form on December 28 due to technical errors.

The company also claimed that its partner company had submitted applications to the Football Association of Hong Kong China.

However, the association responded that it did not receive any application from the company, adding that organizers should obtain the association's approval before renting venues from relevant authorities.

Meanwhile, Barca Hong Kong Fan Club said it checked with the football club's Hong Kong office, which said it was not aware of any agreement between them and Winman.

The fan club yesterday told Sing Tao Daily, The Standard's sister newspaper, that FC Barcelona's Hong Kong office "never reached any kind of cooperation" with Winman about an Asian tour.

"It is fake news," the fan club said.

According to Winman's website, it has been in operation for over seven years, but records from the Companies Registry showed that it was only founded last year.