Renowned sports organizations are the latest to be drawn into the controversial debate over Hong Kong’s national security law for taking sponsorship money from the supporting lenders.
HSBC and Standard Chartered have been famed sponsors of numerous sports events and organizations over the years especially with regards to British athletics. The former, for example, is a long time «official banking supplier» to the Wimbledon tennis tournament since 2007 and the latter, a main sponsor of Liverpool FC for a decade.
The two specific sports organizations drew heat last week from British politicians over their partnerships with the two lenders who have publicly declared support for the newly proposed national security law in Hong Kong.
«Obviously Wimbledon, Liverpool FC and other sporting organizations should not be accepting sponsorship from banks which are now apologists for the Chinese dictatorship seeking to destroy the rule of law in Hong Kong,» said British Labor Party politician and House of Lords member Andrew Adonis, cited by a British media report.
New Targets
While HSBC and, to a lesser extent, Standard Chartered have been nearly constantly in the spotlight over their publicly declared support for the controversial law, their sponsorship partners have become latest targets of British politicians.
Other renowned sports organizations or events backed by HSBC include the «World Rugby Sevens Series», the «World Golf Championships», «The Open» golf tournament and many more. Standard Chartered is equally visible in the sports community especially for running where the bank sponsors eight marathons around the world.
