By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-31 07:16:25 | Updated at 2025-04-02 00:12:14
1 day ago
Four of the world’s biggest teams will descend on Hong Kong this summer for a festival of football at Kai Tak Stadium, organisers announced on Monday.
Premier League trio Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, plus Italian giants AC Milan, will play pre-season friendlies in July, with the two North London clubs contesting a rare derby outside the English capital.
Liverpool will face Milan on July 26 in a repeat of the 2005 and 2007 Champions League finals. The Arsenal-Tottenham clash will follow on July 31.
All four teams will be in the final stages of their preparations for the 2025-26 season, with English football’s top flight kicking off on August 16, and Serie A typically starting around the middle or end of that month.
The news came less than 24 hours after the end of the first Cathay/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens at the city’s stunning new venue, and highlighted the attraction of the HK$30 billion Kai Tak Sports Park.
The 50,000-capacity stadium in Kowloon has evidently enabled Hong Kong to fight for fixtures on an equal footing with Singapore, which has boasted bragging rights since 2014, when it opened the National Stadium, holding 55,000 people.
