Command & Control, Policy & Planning

Successful tournaments in uncertain times

By Jianggan Li | 6 May 2009

The news was breaking: Hong Kong had its first confirmed human swine flu case.

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• INTERVIEW

That was around 8pm on Friday May 1st, a public holiday in the territory. However, it immediately touched the nerves of Allan Payne, Executive Director of Hong Kong Rugby Football Union.

The Asian 5 Nations tournament has a match between Hong Kong and Japan scheduled to take place the next day in the territory. It is not the biggest event the Union manages, but yet there would be 3500 spectators coming, some of whom from overseas.

Payne immediately called for an emergency meeting and sought advice from all the relevant government authorities. “A lot of communications took place between 10pm and 11pm that evening,” he recalled. “Although sealing the hotel where the infected patient stayed at, the government advised that public gatherings and exhibition could take places, with organisers having to take extra hygiene measures for the participants.”

The same weekend, there was a big traditional festival happening in one of the outlying islands of Hong Kong. The government printed out leaflets on human swine flu to hand out to participants at the ferry terminal.

The Rugby Union also obtained the leaflets and reprinted for the spectators of the upcoming game.

“We went ahead with all the hygiene measures; we kept alert and kept the spectators informed; and we were lucky,” Payne said the game was a success.

However the host team were not so lucky – they lost 6-59 to the visiting Japanese.

Payne said it was fortunate that their big annual event – Hong Kong Rugby Sevens – had been successfully held more than a month ago, shortly before the virus started making headlines.

“There are two aspects of threats to a safe rugby tournament – general care of the people who came for the matches and broader modern day threats such as terrorism,” Payne said. “However, with SARS and bird flu, we at the forefront of major sporting events were contended with different kind of threats that are still unfamiliar to many of our peers.”

“This is something you can’t see, you can’t quantify,” Payne said after going through the learning curve, the Rugby Union keeps very close contact with the medical authorities and makes getting local government advisory the first priority.

Payne recalled that the 2003 SARS outbreak was the most difficult scenario to deal with. The annual Rugby Hong Kong Sevens was imminent when epidemic broke out.

“It was new to everyone and nobody really knew what it was,” he said. “Everyone, even the government, was going through a very big learning curve.”

That made it difficult for the organisation to receive direct and authoritative advice. “People at the authorities had to discuss about it first before they could revert to us,” recalled Payne.

After a few meetings, including some with the medical authorities, the Rugby Union decided to go ahead with the games but giving people the option to cancel their tickets and have their money refunded.

“Just under five thousand chose to do so, out of 40 thousand who bought the tickets,” Payne said the attractiveness of the games still beat the fear of the virus; but it also demonstrated that people had confidence on the organisers.

“It was a huge relief when the tournament was over,” he recalled. “We did it responsibly, as we always do.”

The full interview, with Payne’s comments on many other aspects of sporting event security, will appear in the June 2009 issue of Asian Security Review magazine.
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