Former England and Liverpool players Kevin Keegan and Terry McDermott "helped launch this year’s" Hong Kong Football Club Soccer Sevens on Tuesday as "clubs from an impressive selection of leagues were confirmed to take part."
Teams from England, Scotland, Germany, Italy and France are set to "appear at the May seven-a-side tournament." Tournament Dir Chris Plowman:
“We are delighted to announce that this year’s HKFC Citi Soccer Sevens will be the most diverse in its entire history. We will be seeing representation from three of continental Europe’s top leagues in Serie A, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga as well as our regular visitors from the English Premier League and Scotland’s Premier League, plus teams from the K-League in South Korea, the J.League in Japan, Australia’s A-League, Singapore and, of course, Hong Kong.” The lineup for this year’s event, the 18th edition of the annual tournament, will be announced in the coming weeks with the tournament taking place from May 26-28 (SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, 2/7).
Japanese organizers of this month’s Asian Winter Games "have changed the accommodation for Chinese and South Korean athletes after a row over a hotelier’s inflammatory war book."
The APA, one of Japan’s largest hotel chains, has "triggered an angry backlash from China for a book written by APA’s chief executive and placed in guest rooms, which claims that the infamous 1937 Nanjing massacre committed by Japanese troops was a 'fabrication.'" Some 230 Chinese and a similar number of South Koreans "are being found new accommodation."
The APA chain insisted "it would not remove the controversial book" (AFP, 2/7).
Pakistan Super League officials briefed int'l cricket players "about security arrangements for the tournament's final match scheduled to be held in Lahore next month." PSL Chair Najam Sethi addressed the cricketers and informed them about the security situation in Pakistan in general, and Lahore in particular. He said,
"Giles Clarke (Chairman England Cricket Board) and his team visited Lahore last month and were hugely impressed by the security arrangements we made at the stadium and the National Cricket Academy" (DAWN, 2/7)
