Saudi Super Cup: post-Ronaldo slump hits second semi-final, fans mix business with pleasure
A day after thousands of fans jostled for a sight of the global superstar, only a handful turn out for Al-Qadsiah’s clash with Al-Ahli Saudi
Scenes outside Hong Kong Stadium on Wednesday could not have been any more different to just 24 hours earlier, when football megastar Cristiano Ronaldo pulled 30,000 fans from across the world to the venue in Causeway Bay.
What a difference a day makes.
Walking towards the stadium two hours before Wednesday’s 8pm kick-off, you could easily be forgiven for not knowing there was a match going to take place. Al-Qadsiah were playing Al-Ahli Saudi in the second semi-final of the Saudi Super Cup, by the way.
Long gone was the sea of Ronaldo shirts and the carnival atmosphere, while the crowd-control barriers looked more like a hangover from the day before, when 10-man Al-Nassr beat Al-Ittihad 2-1.
This time little more than 100 fans, mostly from Saudi Arabia, had begun to congregate from around 6.30pm. Those numbers picked up, but only a little, with at most 3,000 fans in the ground. Organisers initially claimed an official attendance of 20,165, before reducing that figure to 16,253.
In a statement, they said the higher number accounted for tickets “distributed for the match”, a figure that was “mistakenly announced” at the stadium.