David Silva is coming out of retirement at the age of 40 to play for the Hong Kong Premier League club Supreme Sha Tin – but the arrangement is not quite what the first headlines suggested.
Last week Supreme Sha Tin announced the signing on their Instagram account, presenting the former Manchester City and Spain midfielder as a marquee addition. In a video posted by the club, Silva said: “I am very happy to join Supreme Sha Tin for this experience. I am really looking forward to going to Hong Kong to enjoy the culture, the people and the food.” The post described him as “the legendary Spanish No 21 midfielder” and said he would travel to Hong Kong soon “to settle in, link up with squad training, and build up to peak match fitness before making his pitch debut”. The club’s founders reacted by declaring that they had “struck it big with this deal”, and fans were promised special perks including behind-the-scenes access to training.
The impression given was that Silva would be with the club for the remainder of the season, with 17 games left for the team to climb the table after a slowish start. Silva, however, was taken aback by the scale of the reaction. “I am surprised because in the end it is only to play one match,” he said. “The news made it look like I had signed for a season and it has kept me busy all afternoon. It is a league match, but it is still just one match.”
Silva retired more than three years ago because of an anterior cruciate ligament injury sustained during pre-season training with Real Sociedad. He had spent three seasons in San Sebastián after a decade at Manchester City, where between 2011 and 2018 he won four Premier League titles, two FA Cups and five League Cups – a haul later tainted by the findings of the Premier League’s independent commission. He also earned 125 caps for Spain, winning the 2010 World Cup and the European Championship on either side of it.
He has been keen to stress that the move is not about money. “It is in Hong Kong, a city I love very much,” he said. “Some have expressed concern about the financial side for me … But that is not the case here. Thanks to my father and my adviser, with whom I have been investing well for years, I have achieved great success.”
Hong Kong, whose official football name is Hong Kong, China, has long worked to maintain an independent football association and the trappings and privileges that come with it. The territory’s football history stretches back to its time as a British colony and has continued since it became a special administrative region of China in 1997. There was talk a few years ago, during a period of heavy spending, of entering a Hong Kong team in the Chinese Super League, but it never happened. George Best, Peter Shilton, Arie Haan, Bobby Moore, Diego Forlán, Nicky Butt, René van de Kerkhof, Tony Morley, Gordon McQueen and Craig Foster are among those who have played in the territory, and Silva will soon do the same.
Supreme Sha Tin were promoted last season and had tried to sign Juan Mata before landing what they regard as a bigger name. The club has been reshaped by its owner, Jim Wong Chi-chuen, who also plays for the team and took over three years ago. The club was rebranded, and before the new season he appointed the girl group Collar as club ambassadors.
A change of image was needed in part because the coach who delivered promotion, Lo Kwan-yee, a former Hong Kong footballer of the year, was reportedly arrested in June in relation to match-fixing allegations. Local media reported that the allegations relate to the period before Lo joined Sha Tin, but Wong said the club had still been affected. “We’ve lost some sponsors and, financially, they haven’t been replaced,” he told the South China Morning Post. “The financial pressure on me is greater than I expected, but I want to push this forward and make it work. I’m trying to do something very pure.”
Against that backdrop, the sight of Silva in full flow is a rare kind of headline for the club. If he can be a hero, even for just one day, it could be the talk of Hong Kong for years to come.