The idiocy of the average Manchester City fan seemingly knows no bounds - City supporters, unable to deal with words of four or more syllables, have taken to calling new owner, Thaksin Shinawatra, Frank (after Sinatra - geddit?). Evidently the level of humour which leads to the City of Manchester Stadium being one of the very few grounds where incredibly humourous chants (sic) linking Tottenham fans with the genocide in nazi gas chambers, remains strong to this day. No doubt they would have found witty synonyms for Mussolini or Franco (Sinatro??) if tyrants from a previous era had taken over their club.
The corruption of the Premier League, in allowing this outrageous takeover to proceed, is similarly unconstrained by boundaries.
In previous posts (see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/06/building-your-club-on-third-world.html and http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/06/taxing-thaksin.html), we outlined the prime reasons why this particular takeover should be regarded as a takeover too far. Despite the ethical deficiencies of ALL the new wave of owners of the Premiership clubs being apparent, Thaksin's background shows conspicuous evidence of being based on money generated illegally via the Far East betting markets. The other new owners are merely intending to target such markets for corrupt profit. Shinawatra refuses to disclose how he will be financing the club or to say how much will be available for Eriksson to rebuild the team (the released figures being repeatedly downsized as the bid neared completion). It depends on the betting markets, I guess. His declared aim to delist the club and take it private is a strategy that usually indicates one of two targets. Either the aim is to behave like a private equity takeover and saddle the club with huge debts with an accompanying targeting of overheads - ie wages (ie less decent players) - or the tactic is to hide the true incomings and outgoings from prying eyes with the highly efficient usage of Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs) to squirrel away cash for a later renewed effort to claim back the premiership of Thailand. We would plump for the latter.
There are three prime reasons in addition to the ones outlined in the earlier posts for City fans to be very concerned instead of myopically euphoric.
Firstly, the initial transfer links to Michael Owen and Yakubu (one of Zahavi's men) are indicative of the worst fears coming to pass regarding performances being positively correlated with inappropriate betting markets.
Secondly, City are naive if they think that Thaksin's misdemeanours are insubstantial. Just as a taster of what is to come, examine the following. Prosecutors in Thailand have filed the first in a series of corruption charges against Frank. The Thai government is threatening to extradite him from Britain over other allegations of crookery - even though Britain claims to refuse to deal diplomatically with military governments, this is not always adhered to, as Musharraf clearly demonstrates in Pakistan. Even this potential defensive obstacle might prove to be invalid however as the military are suggesting a return to civilian rule in September with the current leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin (don't even try pronouncing that you Citizens) linking with former foes AND allies of Thaksin to launch a new political party, Ruam Jai Thai (Thai Unity). Additionally, most of his fortune has been seized, his Thai Rak Thai party has been disbanded and the few cronies still loyal to him have been barred from politics for five years. The protests in support of Thaksin have been far less well attended than expected. The only factor in favour of Thaksin being allowed to retain residence in England is the duplicitous nature of the British institutions which allow the despotic an easy ride - think Berezovsky, for example.
Thirdly, what happens to a private company when its sole owner is politically and financially bankrupted? Perhaps City fans should glance over the Pennines at the plight of Leeds United and their slide towards oblivion rather than gazing with rose tinted spectacles at Old Trafford.
There is however, I suppose, one level where the input of the City fans has been more than perceptive - Frank Sinatra allegedly had very very close links to the mafia...
We would be looking to short sell Manchester City on the Premiership ante-post markets this season all other things being equal.
The other disturbing aspect of the deconstruction of the Premiership is the role of the Premier League. Scudamore, the Premier League CEO, was entirely dismissive of the government's concerns about Shinawatra raised by outgoing Labour minister Richard Caborn. Obviously, Caborn's position was severely undermined by the imminency of his change in job title and, yet, the disparaging power hierarchy whereby the Premier League overrides the concerns of a democratically elected (to an extent!) government should concern every football fan in the country. It is Shinawatra's good fortune that his takeover bid coincided with political fissure. Looking at the twenty clubs that make up the Premiership, sixteen of them either have links to bookmakers (via sponsorship or significantly more corrupt arrangements linked to the global betting markets) or they are controlled by psychopathic businessmen who have purchased the clubs merely to link them to these global betting markets. The mathematics of ownership simply do not add up without the input of these markets and the likes of Hicks and Gillett and Shinawatra do not go for irrational decisions where finance is concerned - the alleged love of the Liverpool Reds and the Manchester Blues is always trumped by their love of the Dollars Green.
The Premier League views itself as being above the law in other ways too - witness the relegation of Sheffield United (have they got something against Caborn?). The chairman of the panel investigating and confirming this demotion stated that he would have docked points from West Ham United: "we can see the force of their [Sheffield's} attack and we have much sympathy for [their] grievances arising from the decision and the manner in which it was taken. We would, for example, have given much more weight to the deliberate deceit by West Ham officials which concealed the existence of the third party arrangements". Guilty as charged then yet Magnussen's millions evidently have greater clout than anything as irritating as governance. What a distance football has travelled since the 1930's when the FA used to delay releasing the fixture list in real time in order to undermine the Football Pools companies and their efforts to introduce a gambling element into the sport.
In conclusion, I have sat here for fifteen minutes trying to think of reasons, any reason at all, to look forward to the new Premiership season which, after all, is merely a month or so away. The only reason that I have managed to discern is the considerable profits that my Trading Team will be able to bank from the continuing demise of the most corrupt football league in the world.
Can't wait...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
