HKFC Soccer Sevens

The HKFC Soccer Sevens, formerly known as the International Soccer Sevens, is an annual invitational seven-a-side football tournament which is organised and hosted by Hong Kong Football Club.[2] Held since 1999, many young professional players have made a name for themselves in the tournament including Premier League players Gabriel Agbonlahor, Jack Grealish, Rolando Aarons, Glen Johnson, Anton Ferdinand, David Bentley and Marc Albrighton, as well as Scotland internationals Shaun Maloney, Craig Beattie and Chris Burke.

Founded1999
Number of teams16 Main, 10 Masters
Current champions Newcastle United
Most successful club(s) Aston Villa (6 titles)[1]
Websitehttp://www.hksoccersevens.com/

Format
  • The event features two competitions, a Main Tournament and Masters Tournament. The 16-team Main Tournament is open age group (players must be at least 16) and features mostly youth and academy teams from clubs in Europe playing against more senior players from leagues around Asia.[3]
  • The 10-team Masters Tournament is for players aged 35 and over and features former players from Europe's top leagues. Players such as Jürgen Klinsmann, John Barnes, Andy Cole, Matt Le Tissier, Des Walker, Didier Six, Mustapha Hadji, Peter Beardsley, Craig Armstrong, David Johnson, Des Lyttle, Jason Lee,and Michael Thomas have competed in this category.
  • Each game has two seven-minute halves with a one-minute half-time break, while the finals are 10 minutes each half with a three-minute break at half-time.
  • There are two stages: the group stage followed by the knockout stage. In the Main group stage, teams compete within four groups of four teams each. Each group plays a round-robin tournament, in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. The top two teams from each group advance to the Cup knockout stage while the bottom two advance to the Plate knockout stage. In the Masters Tournament, the 12 teams are split into three groups of four teams.
  • The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with penalty shootouts and sudden death used to decide the winner if necessary. It begins with the quarter-finals in which the third-placed team plays against the fourth-placed team in Plate and the winner of each group plays against the runner-up of another group in Cup. This is followed by the semi-finals and the final.[3]
  • The Main Tournament has an additional Shield competition which is contested by the four losing teams of the Cup quarter-finals. The Shield is also a single-elimination tournament of similar format. The Cup is regarded as the highest honour, followed by the Shield and Plate.

Past winners
Season Title Sponsor Main Tournament Masters Tournament Player of the Tournament
1999 None Blackburn Rovers Carling All Stars Jon-Paul McGovern
2000 Philips Lighting Instant Dict Lorenz All Stars Leon Knight
2001 Philips Lighting Arsenal Instant Dict Veterans Liam Chilvers
2002 Philips Lighting Aston Villa [1] Philips All Stars Jonathan Bewers
2003 Not Held due to SARS outbreak[4]
2004 Philips Lighting Aston Villa[1] Philips All Stars Stephen Cooke
2005 Philips Lighting Urawa Red Diamonds Lorenz All Stars Sergio Escudero
2006 Philips Lighting Urawa Red Diamonds Lorenz All Stars Gabriel Agbonlahor
2007 Philips Lighting Aston Villa Lorenz All Stars Zoltán Stieber
2008 Philips Lighting Aston Villa.[1] Rangers Legends Barry Bannan
2009 IP Global Celtic Golden Rainbow Paul McGowan
2010 IP Global Aston Villa [1] Kokusai F.C. Tokyo Andrew Shinnie
2011 Citibank Kitchee Top Class F.C. Ubay Luzardo
2012 Citibank Newcastle United Aegon AFC All Stars Daniel Johnson
2013 Citibank Leicester City Rangers All Stars Harry Panayiotou
2014 Citibank Manchester City Aegon Ajax All Stars Brandon Barker
2015 Citibank Atlético Madrid USRC-BTS Samuel Sáiz
2016 Citi Aston Villa Citi All Stars Khalid Abdo
2017 Citi Leicester City Citi All Stars Josh Felix-Eppiah
2018 Citi Newcastle United Discovery Bay F.C. Víctor Fernández
2019 Citi Newcastle United Wallsend Boys Club Elias Sørensen

References
  1. "Jones: I'll never forget Gabby's performances in Hong Kong Sevens". Aston Villa F.C. Official Website. June 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-09-04. Retrieved 2013-07-15.
  2. South China Morning Post - Plenty of Potential for Hong Kong Soccer Sevens. Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  3. "HKFC Citi Soccer Sevens Rules". HKFC Soccer Sevens. Retrieved 16 May 2016.
  4. Celtic Programmes Online - CELTIC IN THE HKFC INTERNATIONAL SOCCER SEVENS
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