Initially, a touring team (usually European) visited Hong Kong playing exhibition matches vs local combined. In the period before and around the
Second World War, the Lunar New Year Cup was competed for by teams from Hong Kong and mainland
China. Since 1950, HKFA has invited at least one overseas team to enter the competition. Before 1982, there were three exhibition matches in the tournament. The first two were usually played by the
Hong Kong national football team, Hong Kong player team and
Hong Kong League XI while the Chinese XI played the last match. In 1983, there was a main sponsorship for the competition for the first time and the number of invited teams was increased to three. From 1993 onwards, national teams rather than club teams were invited to participate in the competition. Many of the matches in that period were recognised as "full internationals" by
FIFA. == Competition name and sponsorship ==