October 08, 2026

Letter to South China Morning Post

Readers discuss Cambodia’s efforts to combat scams, the booking system for football matches at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Sports Park, and Trump’s tariff approach

Its commitments are voluntary and non-binding, with no agreed funding mechanism, timetable or concrete details on how governments will pursue criminal networks across borders or recover stolen assets.

Cambodian officials rightly point to hundreds of recent investigations and raids. Yet numbers alone cannot answer the central question of accountability: who owns, finances and profits from these scam compounds, and how far up the chain have investigations reached?

That question has become harder to ignore. US Treasury sanctions against Cambodian senators Ly Yong Phat and Kok An, together with recent calls by congressional leaders to investigate other senior figures – including the deputy prime minister, Neth Savoeun, who delivered the conference’s closing remarks, and Hun To, the cousin of Cambodia’s prime minister – have intensified scrutiny of possible links between scam networks and politically connected figures. Sanctions are not criminal convictions, but allegations involving figures of such prominence make it all the more important for Cambodia’s own institutions to show what has been investigated and what those investigations have found.

There is still little public information on how many cases have resulted in convictions, how much money has been recovered and returned to victims, or whether influential facilitators face the same scrutiny as lower-level operatives. The declaration’s promise to protect trafficked people must also be matched by evidence that coerced workers are being identified and protected rather than simply detained or deported.

If the Phnom Penh Declaration is to “break the criminal chain”, investigations will have to extend beyond the compounds themselves and into the financial, corporate and political networks that have allowed this industry to operate on such a scale.

Mu Sochua, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and president of the Khmer Movement for Democracy

Major football matches should have cash ticket booths

Tournament organisers and Ticketflap have made a deeply misguided decision by enforcing a strict digital-only ticketing policy for the Fifa Asean Cup 2026 matches at the Kai Tak Sports Park.

By eliminating traditional on-site cash ticket booths, the organisers have effectively locked out a generation of loyal, elderly football fans who are not tech-savvy or familiar with navigating complex online booking platforms. Worse still, fans are being forced to pay a HK$30 “service fee” per ticket to a middleman platform, a levy that equals a significant amount of the actual ticket price for lower-tier seats. This feels less like a convenience fee and more like direct exploitation of local sports fans. This rigid digital mandate is not only difficult for the elderly to comply with but could also expose ordinary people to cybersecurity risks.

When a government invests billions of public funds into building a world-class facility like the Kai Tak Sports Park to promote local sports, the entry barriers should be lowered, not raised. Forcing fans through digital hurdles and high booking fees for regional games will only guarantee rows of empty seats.

The Football Association of Hong Kong, China, and the operator of Kai Tak Sports Park must urgently reintroduce physical cash ticket booths at stadium gates. Public sporting events must remain safe, affordable and accessible to every member of our community – especially our seniors.

George Woo, emeritus professor, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Matter of time before world turns against Trump’s US

There is a lot of discomfort with the way Trump has been handling global affairs. Does he realise it can cost the US everything it has built over the last 250 years? By making the world turn against the US economy, he is gambling with his country’s future and creating the false impression that he is winning the tariff war or any war for that matter.

Rishi Teckchandani, Mid-Levels