Azkals' friendly game in Hong Kong turns unfriendly Pinoy fans hurt - June 5, 2013

In a bizarre turn of events, the friendly game of the Philippine national football team Azkals on Tuesday evening turned "unfriendly" as some fans of the Hong Kong team allegedly threw trash and hurled invectives at the fans of the Philippine team.

Posts on the Facebook page of the Azkals said some of the Filipino fans who suffered abuse were women and children.

The Azkals, under manager Dan Palami and coach Michael Weiss, defeated the home team 1-0 on Tuesday at the Mong Kok Stadium in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

James Younghusband scored the lone goal of the Philippine team 33 minutes into the game. It was the Philippine team's first-ever win over the Hong Kong team.

"The win of the Philippines over Hong Kong was the FIRST TIME in seven attempts between the two sides with the last result between the two was in 2011 in a 3-3 draw in the Long Teng Cup," the Azkals said on its page.

On Twitter, the Azkals said: "Sa mga kababayan natin na sumuporta at nanood ng laban kontra Hong Kong, maraming salamat sa inyong lahat! Para bansa ang panalo nating ito!"

Also on Twitter, some fans shared stories about the reported abuse experienced by the Filipino fans.

Ida Torres ‏@idagurl: yeah it was really awful. We've been to a few away games before in other countries but we were never treated this way :(

Ida Torres ‏@idagurl: what makes it worse is that most of the Pinoys were women and there were some kids. Hay, remembering it makes me angry again


Some Filipino tweeps who were present during the friendly game said some Hong Kong fans were already rowdy during the start of the match-up, even going so far as booing the Philippine national anthem while it was being played.

Ida Torres @idagurl: National Anthem pa lang, they were booing us already. Was crying while singing coz I was so proud to be holding our flag

Andi @andinesss: They were booing our national anthem. They were raising their middles fingers. Cursing the pinoy crowd and players. No fairplay.

Boyet J. Sison@BoyetJSison: reading on what happened last night at the Azkals-HK match...there were fans who boood while our anthem was playing, and were unruly.


Some fans reacted to the news via Facebook:

Al Peter: Don't generalize; only some Hong Kong fans; we should refrain from using any ethnic reference here, many Fil-Chinese are hardcore Azkal fans also.

Jill Esteva Forde: Don't read any generalization there or ethnic reference...what about calling us a country of slaves? .  - Veronica Pulumbarit, GMA News