Hong Kong in frame to host Nations Championship finals and Lions matches
Hong Kong has emerged as a candidate to stage future Nations Championship finals at its new Kai Tak Sports Park and would be an ideal British & Irish Lions stopover, according to a senior World Rugby executive.
The inaugural Nations Championship finals – the biennial playoffs among the world's leading international sides – is to be held in London in 2026 with Qatar lined up for 2028 but the Hong Kong stadium is an increasingly popular suggestion for subsequent editions.
The stadium hosted its first international sporting event last weekend by staging the Hong Kong Sevens, relocating the famous tournament to the site of the former airport in Kowloon which now hosts the Cathay Pacific sponsored sports park. Transforming the site, which hosts the 50,000-seat stadium, a 10,000-capacity indoor arena and a track and field venue, cost £3bn.
On Monday it was confirmed that in July, Tottenham will play Arsenal at Kai Tak stadium in the first north London derby staged outside the UK while Liverpool will also be in action against Milan.
Al Baxter, a former Australia prop under Eddie Jones turned architect and one of the brains behind the stadium in Hong Kong, said it would be the 'perfect venue' and the city was 'really keen' to host the Nations Championship finals.
Meanwhile the British & Irish Lions are looking for a warm-up match on the way to New Zealand in 2029. The Lions played in Hong Kong in 2013, facing off against the Barbarians, while Australia played New Zealand in two Bledisloe Cup fixtures in 2008 and 2010. The Lions match was blighted by the searing heat in Hong Kong in June but the Kai Tak stadium's retractable roof solves that issue.
Asked if Hong Kong was an option for the Lions in the future, Alan Gilpin, the chief executive of World Rugby, said: 'Definitely. The beauty of this is when the Lions did come through here, it would have been 2013 on the way to Australia. It was so hot that no one could hold the ball, it was like a bar of soap. Now if you close the roof, it would be a brilliant spectacle.'
The Kai Tak stadium may also offer a clue as to what the planned £663m refurbishment of Twickenham may look like. Populous has been signed by the Rugby Football Union for its stadium masterplan with work due to begin in 2027.
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In Hong Kong the decision was made to relocate from the old stadium in Causeway Bay whereas with Twickenham – unless the somewhat hollow sounding threat to relocate to Milton Keynes comes to fruition – redevelopment is the order of the day. Populous were the architects of the new Wembley stadium and can also list the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, the London 2012 stadium, the Sphere in Las Vegas, the Aviva and the Principality stadium.
'We've done hundreds of these sorts of buildings,' says Richard Breslin, Baxter's fellow director at Populous. 'There's not one single bowl, there's not one single venue which is the same. They all have to be totally different. Even in a big city like this or in London or any of the major cities, it's not one big amorphous blob. You've got little villages, so you're really trying to pick up on that and try to understand that and try and respect that as well.'
Gerard Meagher's travel to Hong Kong was provided by Cathay Pacific, sponsor of the Hong Kong Sevens.
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