According to AFC regulations, each club participating in the AFC Cup or the AFC Champions League can nominate three foreign players and one additional non-local player, who holds the nationality of an AFC member association (incl. Australia).
South China head coach Casemiro Mior nominated Christian Mora (GK, Ecuador), Bojan Mališić (DF, Serbia), Mahama Awal (FW, Cameroon) and newly signed Boima Jerry Karpeh (FW, Australia/Liberia). Karpeh, who holds an Australian passport, will replace outgoing 38-year-old Daniel McBreen, who netted 8 times for South China in the AFC Cup campaign and remains on top of the scorer table.
Kitchee’s Abraham Garcia picked Recio (DF, Spain), Paulinho (MF, Brazil), Kim Tae-min (MF, South Korea) and Juan Belencoso (FW, Spain). Paulinho will replace Jordi Tarres, who was part of the AFC Cup campaign throughout the spring. However, this might also be the last time that Paulinho will appear as foreign aid. Together with his Brazilian teammate Helio, he is expected to receive his HKSAR passport any time soon (once they revoked their Brazilian nationality). That means both of them will also be eligible to play for the Hong Kong representative team, maybe already for the upcoming World Cup Qualifier games!
