From the day he signed his name on the apprentice contract back in 1996, Wong Yiu-fu has pretty much witnessed all the ups and downs that the Hong Kong professional football circuit has to offer, even managed to retire from the game twice in the process, only to make his comeback on both occasions.

With boiling passion for both football and futsal, Wong joined Wofoo Tai Po this past summer, hoping to utilize daily training with a professional club to keep his futsal form sharp. In addition, Wong also believes promoting the futsal game can lead to the overall development of football.

Judging from his outlook and actions, people might consider Wong obnoxious and self-promoting, yet Wong maintains all he ever wants is to bring noise and awareness to football and futsal – two games that he cares passionately for.

Ever since representing Hong Kong in the Asian Indoor Games and the AFC Futsal Championship in 2012, Wong has pretty much been a mainstay for the Hong Kong futsal representative team. The game is fast, end-to-end and boasts a high intensity, hence players must stay in tip-top shape in order to compete and to perform. Wong came across the idea of utilizing the daily training of football in order to stay in shape and hence, decided to give the Hong Kong Premier League one more go.

“From the past editions of the Asian Indoor Games and the AFC Futsal Championships to the present day, the Hong Kong futsal squad has gone through over eighty percent of personnel changes. There is no problem with the new players' ability but when it comes to defense, there are only veterans like Chow Ka-wai, Chan Man-chun, Yeung Chi-lun and myself still playing, making player-selection rather limited. If we want to maintain the futsal development and resources, the representative team cannot be performing poorly, hence coach Tsang (Hong Kong futsal representative team head coach Tsang wai-chung) asked a few of us to stick around and to help the program,” Wong explained.

Having left and returned to the local professional game, Wong believes the local development of futsal can prove to be the foundation and early training for regular football. “Hong Kong had previously organized the FIFA Futsal World Cup. It was only a lack of software and hardware that made the game stopped developing in town. Ever since European countries started to place an emphasis on futsal, Asian countries such as Japan had started to follow. Futsal grounds are actually quite easy to maintain and you only need a few players to get started, making it the easiest way to grow football population.”

Having made his international futsal debut in 2012, Wong is extremely grateful to what the game has given him, making him all the more eager to give back to futsal and to promote the game locally. “In order to create more noise and awareness for the game, it looks like several of us veterans will have to stick around for a bit longer, trying to get more people involved.”

Having spent a lot of time and energy on futsal, Wong insists that does not mean he takes football lightly. “I care about football just as much as I care about futsal. Futsal is all about passing accurately, keeping possession and executing defensive tactics. These are all things that you can use in football. If we do well in futsal, then we are also helping the development of football,” Wong stated.

Regarding his own club, Wong believes premier league side Wofoo Tai Po has a rather clear playing structure. All players need to do on the pitch is to follow head coach Lee Chi-kin's tactics and game-plan. However, Wong will nevertheless try to incorporate certain futsal techniques on the pitch, demonstrating his concept of utilizing futsal skills in football.

“Concepts such as dummies, defending with a man short, covering the lanes and all these, I can use them in the premier league games and I try to bring them to the school teams that I am in charge of, hoping to prove that futsal knowledge can indeed be incorporated into regular football.” 

Maybe the public tends to believe footballers should be a low-key and hard-working bunch – quite the opposite of Wong's high-profile actions away from the football pitches, including setting up his own Facebook fan page. However, Wong considers his actions merely as a way to generate more awareness to the sport, nothing in the self-promoting sense at all.

“Young people go for brand names and in a humble way, I do believe I have a bit of profile outside the game. While I cannot say I am an icon for local futsal, at least there is now a channel to create some noise and awareness for people to learn more about the game. After all, I created the fan page because I want more people to be aware of football and want them to go watch football.”

Wong firmly believes football or futsal can be developed and played in everywhere on Earth. However, the first thing people will need to do is to take the first step.

“Russia made it to the FIFA Futsal World Cup final and who dared to say that is beyond Hong Kong's reach? Besides finance and real estate, there are lots of other fields in Hong Kong where miracles are waiting to happen. If you are not willing to try, then these miracles will never ever happen!”