Yasmin Sung: A Striker's Mission to Elevate Hong Kong Women's Game

By KH - HK Kickers
30 May 2026

Yasmin Sung Li-mon is a physical, clinical striker on the pitch. Top scorer of the 2018-19 Season for Happy Valley, Yasmin, like virtually all other players in the HK Women’s League, has a job in the day before coming to training or games at night. 

She works for Soho House, a private members' club and a global brand with 50 houses worldwide, as the Membership Manager. “I look for new members and make sure our current members are happy. It’s a very front-facing, hands-on job.”

It is certainly not an easy task for Yasmin to balance her work and football. “My schedule isn't a typical 9-to-5, but [my employers] are very understanding of my football. Sometimes after training or a game, I have to rush back to work for a music event. I'll play a game, shower, maybe skip dinner or cook quickly, and then head back to see that everything is running smoothly.”

Yasmin was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and spent most of her early life in Éire until she graduated from the university. She began her interest in football there, as early as 2 or 3 years old. “Football in Ireland at the time was a sport that everyone played—all the boys played, but not so many girls. I was always playing with the boys in school and on the boys' team because they didn't have a girls' team. Eventually, they developed a girls' team, and I joined. I continued to play throughout school, university, and life. I don't think I've ever really stopped playing.”

She also studied in Beijing for a Master’s degree before returning to her father's and grandparents' hometown for work. She used to come back to Hong Kong every summer with her father, so she already had a taste of life in Hong Kong before the homecoming.

“It’s different from Dublin, which is quite quiet after 8 or 9 pm. In Hong Kong, I love the food, the nightlife, the beach, and even just being able to eat noodles late at night. After I finished working and studying in Beijing, I decided to come here to see how it goes. I joined an expat team to make friends and play, and it just grew from there as the sport grew over the last ten years. Eventually, I joined more local teams.”

Yasmin’s first team in the Women’s Football League was Goodbellas (長勝行). “I think my first impression [on the Women's football in HK] was very amateur. We were playing games at the grass pitch near Victoria Park, and training was once a week. But at the time, Bellas was very social, so there's a lot of socialising after.”

Training became more serious and intensive when she moved to Eastern District, and later Happy Valley, where she made a name for herself. A glorious season it was as her team won the League and Yasmin was crowned the top scorer. “That was when the training was getting [better], and [even] the level wasn't quite there yet, it was still growing.”

Sharing a close-knit bond, the players of Happy Valley have since evolved into the later Chelsea FC Soccer School (HK), and now TSL FC, under the management of TSL Football Foundation. 

TSL FC is gaining popularity on social media like Instagram, known for its creative, up-to-date content. Yasmin and her teammate, Ingrid Tsang Sze-nga, are the architects behind all of these short clips. “Ingrid and I initiated this whole thing and wanted to take the lead on this in order for women's football to be [better known]. Everyone's always on their phones, so we have to be very strong on social media. But we're not like the teams in the US or the UK, where they have a social media person that can show up and film you during training, do everything for you; it’s pretty much in our hands to do it. 

“Also, if we can grow the page to a certain level, and we can help the girls, my idea was also to grow the girls' profiles as well. We all know that it's going to be very hard to earn a living by just playing football in Hong Kong.” In Yasmin’s opinion, a bigger online presence may help players find another pathway beyond football. “Maybe they can earn money through sponsorships, or brands can notice them. They can get sponsorships through sports brands. There are different avenues that can be explored, and that's part of the reason why I want to help grow this page. And then also, we want more people to come watch the games.

“In the world we live in today, if you don't have a regular job, for example, you can always have your online brand or a side job as a way to promote yourself. Nowadays, if you apply for a job, chances are the person who's reading your CV is gonna see who you are online. That's just the reality of it.”

Speaking about the latest development in women’s football, she is also amazed by the recent rise in popularity and the growing number of passionate fans attending the games. “That was awesome. It was great to see so many people come and watch this game.” More than 300 fans attended the previous Kitchee-TSL league fixture. “Kitchee and TSL, both sides have a lot of fans, and also it's the biggest game of the season every time we play. I just hope that sort of crowd can be more consistent.”

Nevertheless, an encouraging number of crowds does not mean that women’s football in Hong Kong is free from deficiencies. The lack of facilities and venues is a long-standing issue. “I think it was on one of the ViuTV [Goal To Success] episodes where I think one of the teams, Monday Ike, they train on hardcourts. And sometimes the quality of pitches starts great, but they are poorly maintained. By the time you have a year or two of people using the pitch, the grass is flat, and it causes injury. At the end of the day, the quality of the conditions that you play in matters on your body as well.”

The 2023-24 FA Cup final held at the Hammer Hill Sports Ground is undoubtedly one of the best cases to show how poor facilities can bring adverse effect on the quality of football. “The pitch was terrible. First of all, we don't play on grass pitches for our regular games, and then all of our games are at night. But for that FA Cup final, for some reason, we played on grass and during the day. The grass was literally, like, reaching the ankle. It wasn't just long, but it was like so muddy that even when you ran, you were like falling. 

“It was just crazy. [The grass] wasn't even cut or anything, so I'm like, how can you put an FA Cup final? One FA Cup final for women's football a year, and you put it on a pitch where we've never really played on … How do I say? It's not logical. It doesn't make sense.”

The lack of competition among players is also hindering women’s football in HK from realising its full potential, said Yasmin. “I guess on the Hong Kong national team, we already know who's gonna be on that roster, right? There's no wild card. For something to flourish and to bring out the best in someone, you have to have tough competition to challenge it.” 

There is, of course, no easy solution to this. But players who play football abroad are now bringing new elements to the local football scene. Yasmin cited the example of Emily Wong Cheuk-wing, a 16-year-old player raised in the UK, who was recently included in the HK team preliminary squad and returned to Hong Kong to train with TSL FC. “I think there should be a bit more of that as well. There are plenty of Hong Kong people in different places who have grown up in different environments. [We should] use those resources, bring them over, make our team stronger and competitive.” 

Yasmin believes that people tend to overlook the pool of talent in Hong Kong, which is more multicultural than one might think. “The talents are there not just in the local Chinese community, but you also have a lot of other ethnic groups like the Nepalese, Indian, Filipinos, like they're all here. It's just whether you want to tap into those communities and build from that because, at the end of the day, in football, the people are your resources. You should be able to call on these people to try to play the sport. You could become a very powerful football nation in Asia.”

There also needs to be a clear pathway for the girls to envisage a successful football career, so that more can be committed from the start. “If I were a 10-year-old girl in the UK and I have crazy skills, I kind of already know how I can go: play for my club in town, or play for school, or I go to trials and get scouted by Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, and then I go into their academy … I can already understand the pathway.

“Here, I'm kind of like, okay, what can you do? You can make your highlight videos, which I think is super, super important if [the players] want to play outside of Hong Kong. If there's no one coming to watch our games, you have to make those highlight videos, contact people, and email clubs [for opportunities]. I think that's the pathway I can see happening, but I don't know if that's the clear pathway.”

When asked about what she identifies herself as, Yasmin gave us a very determined answer, “I'm Irish. Chinese-born Irish, I would say.” But that was far from an easy answer. She admitted that she is still struggling with that question, because both the Irish and Hongkonger identities play a big part in her life. 

“My dad was very adamant that I understood where I came from. We still have our small house in Sha Tau Kok, and we still go back to Sha Tau Kok to sweep the graves and do things like that.” Her mum, on the other hand, is a British-born Chinese. Yasmin’s maternal grandparents had a chip shop across the road from Anfield in Liverpool.

“My accent, like in schooling, my mindset is very much Irish, but then I can eat Chinese food every day. I speak Cantonese; my mom and dad are Chinese. I'm very proud to be from both places.”

“If you ask me to represent Hong Kong [in] football, I would, I definitely would. Just passport issues, I can't. So I can't say that like I'm one or the other.”

For Yasmin, football is her life, nothing less. “There are so many different layers to what it means to me. It makes me happy. I think that's the main thing. I love the sport, very passionate about it.” 

“I think it taught me a lot of lessons about everything, and I take those lessons into my everyday life.”

Profile:
Yasmin Sung Li-mon
DOB: 1990-03-02
Nationality: Ireland/Hong Kong
Position: FW
Current club: TSL FC (Hong Kong)

Any players in HK football that you admire?

“My teammates. (Laughter) I love all my teammates.”

It was not surprising to hear the names of Chan Wing [Chan Wing-sze] and Yasmin’s teammate, Wong Shuk-fun. 

“[For Chan Wing], I know that's everyone's answer. But there's a lot of reasoning behind that answer. Chan Wing is like … I don't know what diet she's on or what she's doing. She's a beast. She’s so light on her feet, her shooting's great, her technique is so good, and I think, at the end of the day, she's also a good person.”

Any of the older girls in the league also deserve appreciation, said Yasmin. “They had it a lot harder than we do now. They've spent years and are still spending that time building women's football. And I think if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have some of the foundations that we have today.”

Who do you think is the best young player in Hong Kong right now? 

Leung Hong-kiu and Chan Yee-hing. Easy. 

“If you talk about not being biased, but the girls on TSL, for me, are the best young players. I mean, I train with them 4 days a week, so I can see that they're so skilful … Their shooting's amazing. Their vision's amazing, and they still have room to grow.” 

She also mentioned Ko Pak-ling, who is now studying and forging her football career at Brooke House College in the UK. “She is so good. I know she, as a person, is very determined and very focused. So she was like, I want to go here and play here. She got herself there.”

Your favourite international women’s football players?

Aitana Bonmati, Marta, Alexia Putellas, Lauren James, Leah Williamson, and Sam Kerr, like all of them. 

I think, from a bigger perspective, they've done a lot for girls and women's football. They play really well, but they're also great leaders, very unapologetically themselves about who they are. They're not shy to be like, I am this person, I'm gay, whatever. It doesn't matter. And they use their platform to do a lot of things and inspire; they show a lot of girls what they can achieve. I think that's really important.