HK Team

HKFA appoints Ashley Westwood as new Head Coach

Credit: Afghanistan Football Federation

The new head coach of the Hong Kong men’s team will be Ashley Westwood. Not the 34-year old former Aston Villa player obviously, but the 47-year-old namesake who previously coached Indian club Bengaluru FC and the Afghanistan national team during the recent World Cup qualifiers. Despite a relatively humble track record so far, Hong Kong centre-back Andy Russell once referred to him “as the best coach he ever had” during his time in Malaysia.

Born in the small English town of Bridgnorth, near Birmingham, Westwood started his youth career as a defender with Manchester United where he signed his first professional contract under Sir Alex Ferguson. He also won the FA Youth Cup before signing with Crewe Alexandra.

In 1998 he joined Bradford City and secured promotion to the English Premier League. Westwood stayed for one season, and then signed with Sheffield Wednesday. Other notable stops include his time at AFC Wrexham (2008-2010), albeit long before their newly found Hollywood glory. He eventually retired from professional football in 2012.

In his 17-year playing career, Westwood scored 34 goals in 468 games and was promoted four times with four clubs. As of 2015, he also holds both a UEFA and AFC Pro Coaching License.

After a few months as assistant manager for Michael Appleton, who was also his teammate at Manchester United, Westwood started his professional coaching career with Indian powerhouse Bengaluru FC, which he led to two I-League titles in 2014 and 2016.

Under his guidance, Bengaluru reached the AFC Cup Round of 16 in 2015, where they lost 2-0 to South China at Mong Kok Stadium. In the following year, they made it all the way to the final where they lost 1-0 to Iraqi side Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya, after having eliminated Kitchee 2-3 in the Round of 16 prior to that, which some may still remember as a very disappointing night in Mong Kok.

Given his success, Westwood was allegedly offered a four-year contract by Bengaluru, jobs in Hong Kong and Thailand, as well as the role of India’s head coach, but eventually decided to join Malaysian side Pengan FC for the 2017 season, which he ultimately regretted, as he admitted publicly: “That was a mistake, I wasn’t impressed by the professionalism in Malaysian football so I resigned.”

He lost six of eight league games with Penang, winning only one cup match altogether. However, while at the club, he also signed Hong Kong centre-back Andy Russell, who seemed deeply impressed by Westwood: “Even today, I still think he is probably the best coach that I have ever had in my football career, very detail-oriented.”

Westwood’s time at Penang was followed by short stints with Atletico de Kolkata (ATK) in the Indian Super League, first as a technical director, then as interim coach, and eventually he also shortly managed Punjab FC in the I-League, but without significant success.

Finally, in November 2023, Westwood was surprisingly presented as head coach of the Afghanistan national team. According to an article by The Athletic, Westwood did not live in Kabul but mostly flew out from his home in Australia during that time. Understandable, given that Afghanistan still has to play all their home games in Saudi Arabia due to safety concerns in the country.

Westwood had to deal with a rather difficult environment, as some Afghan players boycotted the team due to corruption allegations against the federation. He tried his best to re-establish trust and gradually helped shaping the team. In the opening match of the group stage of the World Cup qualifying round, Afghanistan were still thrashed 8-1 by Asian Cup winners Qatar, but a few months later they were able to hold them to a respectable draw. While Afghanistan lost both of their matches to Kuwait (0-4, 0-1), they drew with India (0-0) once and eventually caused a 2-1 upset in the return leg, marking an important confidence boost for the federation and making sure they won’t finish last in the group.

Recently, news broke that Ashley Westwood is in a dispute with the Afghanistan Football Federation over unpaid wages and that he had already handed in his resignation, which also led to rumours that he was about to join the Hong Kong Football Association as the new head coach.

Westwood seems to be less of a public communicator than previous Hong Kong head coaches like Kim Pan-gon, Gary White, Mixu Paatelainen, or Jorn Andersen. He has no social media handles on Instagram, X/Twitter, Threads, or Facebook, and appears to be a relatively private person.

According to newspaper reports, Westwood was once prosecuted and found guilty for assaulting a police officer back in England in October 2010. He was given 80 hours of unpaid work, banned from driving for one year, had three points put on his driving licence, and was ordered to pay the prosecution costs of 700 British pounds.

He currently lives in Australia with his partner Mel McLaughlin, an Australian TV sports journalist for Seven Networks, and previously Fox Sports.

Local fans and media (us included) should give Ashley Westwood reasonable time to familiarize himself with Hong Kong football and prove himself with results. Having just arrived, interim coach Wolfang Luisser will still be in charge for the upcoming Fiji games, so the first real tests for Westwood are against Liechtenstein (away) and Cambodia (home) in October. In any case, given all the difficulties for local football at the moment, it won’t be an easy task.

To Top