At a meeting of the Australian Soccer Football Association in January 1927, it was decided to declare its bid for a spot at the Amsterdam Olympiad.
Shortly after, a Darwin-born Chinese man arrived with a few football ideas of his own.
Professor Kwang Lim Kwong came to Australia as a representative of the Shanghai Football Association and met with ASFA chairman Sid Storey and secretary Ern Lukeman to discuss his offer to bring a Chinese football squad to Australia later in the year. ASFA, not having to risk its own resources, and with positive memories of the 1923 Chinese tour, agreed to the proposal.
Kwong went back to China and in May returned with a team of 15 players drawn from three clubs.
The tour opened in Sydney on May 14. The first match against New South Wales drew a decent crowd of around 12,000 to see a powerful local selection face a Chinese side that had only stepped off the Aki Maru the day before after a three-week voyage. It resulted in a £1,500 gate.
The tour was to continue into September, with the team planning to visit all the mainland states.
A Chinese syndicate had been formed to bring the team to Australia, paying for all expenses including transport, accommodation, etc. Overall the Chinese promoters sustained losses of over £2,000.
Unfortunately, the tour had not been successful from a monetary point of view, with the visitors being the only losers as the local associations were in the splendid position of taking 10% of the gate receipts but having no expenses except for local advertising.
However, it ended abruptly on August 6, following a match at Weston, when several (not all) of the players went on strike. Four of the best players had been recalled to Hong Kong a few days earlier. This left only 11 players in Australia to fulfill the remaining fixtures, leading to strained relations among the group.
It was known that the Chinese had not been a happy family for some time. The striking players refused to continue the tour, demanding what was termed as “a month’s indemnity”, amounting to £9 per player.
The ASFA acceded to this demand but was then faced with a demand by seven of the players for “two months’ indemnity”. The other players offered to forego their month’s indemnity to augment the indemnities of the malcontents who, however, then intimated their refusal to participate in any further games.
Consequently, the tour was abandoned.
