Punish ice hockey body and end mudslinging, sports officials told

James Lee

Sports authorities should punish the Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association over a national anthem blunder to put the mudslinging to an end, says Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung Yun-hung.

His comments came after the HKIHA and the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee have continued to argue over an investigation report into the anthem mix-up.

The host of an ice hockey tournament in Bosnia played a song linked to the 2019 anti-extradition protests in place of March of the Volunteers in February.

Speaking at the airport before flying to Hainan province for a work trip yesterday, Yeung said the association admitted failure to follow regulations in an 11-page report it submitted to the committee on Thursday.

"We will ask the SF&OC to impose an appropriate penalty on the ice hockey association, and this incident should come to an end," he said, without mentioning what that penalty might be.

He added the hockey association will shoulder responsibility for the blunder, with athletes' best interests in mind.

Yeung added the SF&OC and the HKIHA will be asked to discuss the association's management issues together, and formulate improvement plans to be submitted to the government.

He said the averted anthem blunder at the Ice Hockey Women's World Championship last month in Romania had demonstrated that the association was indeed able to follow the federation's guidelines.

Yeung's remarks came after HKIHA on Thursday admitted fault in its handling of the anthem, but also denied allegations of presenting the national anthem in an undignified manner and being evasive.

The report said team leader Annie Kwan Yuen-yee tried on six occasions to verify the anthem with chief of competition Mirzet Hodzic, who initially dismissed her concerns, saying that he already had a copy of the anthem.

Kwan repeatedly tried to speak to Hodzic to verify the anthem, but ultimately failed as she was busy with injury reports, ran into communication errors and was at times simply unable to locate him.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, the SF&OC honorary secretary general, Edgar Yang Joe-tsi, said that Kwan did not have a USB drive, based on remarks made at a recorded in-person meeting on March 23.

In a statement, Kwan said she did not have the USB at her first meeting with Hodzic as her luggage was still on the team's bus.

She had the drive when they met a second time - when Hodzic said he already had a copy of the anthem.

The rift between the two bodies widened even further on Saturday when association chairman Mike Kan Yeung-kit said he could no longer remain silent, accusing Yang, also commandant of the Hong Kong Auxiliary Police Force, of "interrogating" Kwan.

Kan said Kwan would have been able to recall the incident accurately "if the federation didn't interrogate her with 1960s-era intimidation tactics and instead focused on making sense of the incident."

Kan also revealed the transcript of a meeting during which Yang had allegedly disrespected athletes.

In response to Kwan saying that she had to handle six teams in Sarajevo, Yang said: "It's just six teams. How troublesome could that be? Just take a seat and have a beer."

The federation said it misrepresented the questioning process as an interrogation and the association should have raised objections at the meeting.

cjames.lee@singtaonewscorp.com

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