HK Baseball Association alerts police on edited video of 2010 match with wrong national anthem

The Hong Kong Baseball Association has filed a report to the police after finding out the Chinese national anthem in a video of a match in Taiwan in 2010 was replaced with a song related to the 2019 protests.

According to the official statement released on 15 December, the association said it received a report earlier in the week about doctored footage uploaded on YouTube showing the pre-match ceremony for the 17th edition of the International Baseball Federation’s Intercontinental Cup, held 12 years ago. 

The original three-minute video in which the Chinese national anthem was played correctly was uploaded to YouTube on 25 October 2010, who also gave credit to Videoland Sports Channel. However, an altered video was uploaded by another user on 14 November 2022. A check by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE saw that the edited video was removed from the Internet.

The association has reported the issue to the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the World Baseball Softball Confederation, the Baseball Federation of Asia and the host of 2010 XVII IBAF Intercontinental Cup.It has also reported the issue to the Hong Kong Police Force, and provided further information in support of police's investigation. “The association strongly condemned these kind of actions,” the statement read. 

This is not the first anthem blunder related to international sports events. Most recently, Asian Powerlifting Federation (APF) has apologised for wrongly playing a 2019 protest-related song as China's national anthem at a medal presentation ceremony of Asian Classic Powerlifting Championship 2022.

This comes as "Glory to Hong Kong", a song associated with protests in 2019 was played as the national anthem of China during a medal presentation ceremony of Asian Classic Powerlifting Championship 2022 held in Dubai on 2 December. Footages online showed that after the song was played for 15 seconds, Susanna Lin, the gold winner for 47-kilogram class competition session, was seen making a “T” sign with her hands, and the correct Chinese national anthem “March of the Volunteers” was played soon after.

Back in November this year, “Glory to Hong Kong” was played instead of the correct national anthem at a rugby match in South Korea. Hong Kong authorities urged Google to place the correct information of the city’s national anthem as a top search result on its sites, after the anthem blunders occurred at multiple rugby tournaments. Meanwhile, Google defends decision to refuse the Government's request.

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