The general behaviour of the fans of Manchester City regarding the potential for Thaksin Shinawatra to takeover their club shares clear parallels with the similarly blinkered approach of Liverpool supporters to the arrival of Hicks and Gillett - at least the Manchester United fans had the sense to see what the Glazers' leveraged buyout meant for the club on a the level of financial risk. The support of one's club has taken on greater levels of pseudo-religious fervour in recent years and, in a largely secular society like England, this inevitably has produced a moral vacuum when it comes to assessing the realities related to the takeover of the game by operations that include a global betting strategy in their financial projections.
There were no complaints from the usually vociferously intrusive Liverpool supporters groups as the prospect of a bigger ground, numerous top tier transfers and, most importantly, being able to compete with the Mancunians again in the Premiership clouded the judgement process. We have outlined the business practices of both the new owners of the Liverpool Reds in numerous other posts and only the inclusion of a betting strategy makes their "investment" rational. And these types of people absolutely do not do irrational things with money... Recent rumours are suggesting that perhaps Benitez will not have that much money to misspend after all.
The City supporters have been even more myopic. To understand the business psychology of the new owners of the other big English teams requires a little research but anybody who knows anything about the Far East understands what sort of operator is Dr Thaksin Shinawatra. The alleged $2 billion he and his family pocketed from the sale of the Shin Corp telecom giant to Singapore's Temasek Holdings was a corrupt and nepotistic piece of rabidly non-democratic business while his psychopathic military campaigns in the south of Thailand against the Muslim minority must be setting alarm bells ringing in Longsight and Rusholme. Furthermore, Bangkok is one of the core hubs of the underground and illegal Far East football betting market circuit - markets where £1 million bets on individual English Premiership matches pass without the blink of an eye. Nothing but nothing that went on in Thailand during Shinawatra's elected dictatorship was unbeknown to him or his cronies. It is naivety of the highest level to make the assumption that this man has anything positive to bring to the Premiership other than greater levels of corruption and even closer links to the colossal pools of liquidity that control our game.
Fortunately, Monday's announcement that the takeover depended on a positive input from the Bank Of Thailand effectively torpedoed the whole bidding process although the decision by Thailand's Assets Examination Committee to withhold $1.5 billion of his allegedly stolen gains hardly helped his chances either.
Since being ousted by the military while he was hobnobbing with George W, Shinawatra has been conducting a political campaign in his native country from his English base. This is a tried and tested manner to campaign in territories where physical danger is the reality - think Bhutto with regard to Pakistan or spooky Russian mafia man Boris Berezovsky. Shinawatra has utilised the spectacular society stunt of buying into the English game to boost his popularity among the soccer mad rural voters that gave him his power foundation. No doubt, Shinawatra is interested in getting hold of a racehorse in the Premiership but we would suggest that this objective falls significantly lower on his hidden agenda than getting his hands on his cash and punishing the military in Thailand.
The hierarchy at City have been in headless chicken mode since the "rumours" first surfaced. "Proper money if we sack the manager" = sack the manager. "Claudio Ranieri is Shinawatra's number one target" which must have been news in Turin where it was common knowledge that Deschamps was to be replaced by Ranieri at the season's end. "The board notes the information emanating out of Thailand today in respect of Dr Shinawatra and the freezing of his assets" = oh shit!
Being up shit creek without a paddle (nor a manager, nor a Joey Barton), with players being questioned by Manchester police over training ground rumpuses just three weeks prior to the onset of pre-season training is about as destabilised as it can get. CEO Alistair Mackenzie had better develop a strategy... and soon.
Despite the general theme running throughout this post, we have to declare that last week's assertion by Dr Shinawatra that "he wanted to buy the team to inspire Asian children to seize their opportunities in life" almost convinced us as to the man's integrity.
The last word goes to Surayud Chulanont, his successor in Thailand, "the rule of law came under fierce attack from the powerful, the rich and their cronies" and "corruption washed through our government."
One can see why England is such a tempting base for the likes of Dr Shinawatra.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
