Sudestasiatico.com

L’ex premier tailandese, Thaksin Shinawatra, sta finalizzando l’acquisto del Manchester City, club calcistico inglese. Sudestasiatico.com pubblica un articolo di David Conn (Guardian Unlimited Blogs) e un commento lasciato all’articolo di un EgalitarianDreamer

The timing of yesterday’s announcement, that Manchester City’s “custodians” are to sell the club to Thaksin Shinawatra and bank millions of pounds of his money on the same day he was charged with criminal corruption in his home country, served to underline Thaksin’s advisers’ view all along: the fans won’t protest.
City’s discussions with the former Thai prime minister, who was deposed in a military coup after widespread allegations of corruption and family nest-feathering, have been conducted with the assumption that the club’s supporters will not be worried about how Thaksin made his billions, or troubled by the long-standing allegations of human rights violations. They would just want somebody, anybody, to throw money in to buy City a few players “fit to wear the shirt”.

Sadly, that seems to be mostly true. A few City fans have read up on Thaksin and decided they would be ashamed if he becomes the owner and chairman of Manchester’s self-styled community club - but most want to know only if the former England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson will be the manager and whether Thaksin will provide enough money to enable City to compete with United in next season’s derby.
I was a fan like them back in 1994, standing at Maine Road to welcome a previous saviour, Francis Lee, as the new majority owner to replace Peter Swales. Who knew anything then about money in football, or shareholdings in clubs, or the debts in the accounts? Swales, a vinegary old salt, was finally out and blessed, cherubic Franny, centre-forward from the glory days, was in. “St Francis, the Second Coming”, proclaimed the T-shirts.
I interviewed Franny shortly after his takeover and there, in the chairman’s office at Maine Road, began my education into the football business - or more precisely into the yawning, at times tragic, chasm between the sentimental, lifelong loyalty fans have for their clubs and the games money men play with them. As an eight-year-old, I kissed Franny’s image on television after watching him score a wondrous free-kick in the sunshine. As an adult, I met a businessman. He was planning to make money out of City by redeveloping the Kippax Street Stand, scooping up the Sky TV millions, then floating the club on the Stock Exchange.
I went on my own journey, learning some facts I should have known already: about how the Football Association from the beginning of professional football believed it must preserve the game’s sporting soul and introduced astute rules to protect clubs from being financially exploited; then how, when modern clubs floated on the stock market, our toothless FA allowed them to bypass those rules by forming holding companies; that the Premier League was formed in 1992 by 22 First Division clubs, including City, to break away from the Football League’s practice of sharing TV money with the 70 in the three lower divisions. Football, contrary to the instinctive feeling of those who love the game and against its own traditions, had become a financial free for all.

City being City, Franny cocked it up. The club was bailed out by John Wardle and David Makin, who might have steered City into a golden age but blew it, too. Now they are accepting £17.5m in part payment of their loans and £7.2m for their shares from Thaksin, who is charged with corruption, has much of his assets frozen and who will use City as part of his profile-boosting campaign in Thailand. There the rural poor, among whom he remains popular, are part of the global TV audience dazzled by the Premiership.
Yesterday’s announcement expressed nothing about City being the Manchester club, about pride or heart, nor anything about Thaksin’s criminal charges or the cloud hanging over him. Instead City’s board said: “The offer presents an opportunity for Manchester City shareholders to realise their entire shareholding in Manchester City for cash, at a significant premium.”
Which says it all. Many City fans were rejoicing yesterday as if the club had found another saviour, not caring, as predicted, about Thaksin’s background; wanting only his money. Really, City fans, those who are not eight years old any more, should grow up.

Comment by Egalitarian Dreamer

Before I could even see, my vision was tainted sky blue. Hours after I was born my Dad’s mate registered me as a junior blue (Man city junior supporters club). One of my first images is of a poster on my wall as a young boy. I remember a black guy with an afro who stood out on the team photo (I think his name was Dave Bennett?). There are plenty of picture as me as a small boy, beaming in my sky blue kit, sponsored by Phillips, or was it saab?
Throughout all of those 26 years It’s never been much fun to be a city fan. We’re the team that gets relegated, that always manages to mess everything up, that employed such footbal luminaries as Alan Ball, Frank Clarke, Phil Neal, Alfons Gronendike, Laurent Charvet and Gerry Creaney. At school it was cool to support United, but for me that made it much cooler to support City. I went even when we were in the third division and getting beat by Lincoln and Barnet. In spite of all the shit I never wavered from my dedication to the cause. We were the family club, the real manchester club. We didn’t care if we lost as long as we played with heart. While we were falling through the divisions our local rivals were cheating and moaning their way to countless trophies. Not once did I ever wish I was a United fan. They won trophies by employing players like Roy Keane, Paul Ince and Mark Hughes and having a whingeing manager with a stopwatch and a frown. Today that has all changed.

I should be delighted. Twenty six years might be finally coming to an end. Twenty six years of no trophies, hardly any good players and public ridicule may be over as our night in shining armour has rolled into town. Thaksin Shinawat, former Prime Minister of Thailand has bought out the controlling stake in the club and promised to spend big on renovating the squad, most fans are delighted. After all of these years we may be able to compete with the big boys and win something, that should make me feel great. It doesn’t. Quite the opposite in fact.
I lived under Thaksin’s rule and saw first hand the kind of person he is and how he has made his money. I’m not sure what my favourite ‘Thaksin moment’ is, perhaps the death squads roaming the streets during his infamous ‘war on drugs’? Perhaps it was when he gave government aid to the burmese military junta in order for them to buy satellitte acess from his personal company? The destruction of democracy? The mess of an airport that stands as monument to his corruption? Mass media manipluation? Or was it him using the country as his own personal piggy bank in oder to further the wealth of him and his family? There are so many examples of that final one it’s untrue. Selling government land to his wife at a massively reduced price, subsidising his private television station with governmet money, buying a 50% stake in AirAsia in order to grant them a license to fly within the country. There are plenty more……

I can’t support him. I can’t watch Manchester City knowing that everything that I am seeing is funded by him. I won’t pay for another piece of merchandise or a ticket until he’s gone. I know it’s a big statement but I just can’t support what he stands for. If that means cutting off a part of my life which has been me since birth, then so be it. I can’t imagine watching a game and seeing that smug square faced wanker in the stands while he is wanted for arrest over here. If a man has no morals how can he truly be a man? So that’s it. I’m an official football widower. I can never remarry, there will be no other, but my one true love has turned into a cheap whore on the arm of the local crook and I can’t overlook it. It’s like the man who raped your wife (she was a cheap hussy but that’s not the point) offering to pay for a night on the town for you to make up for it. Or the man who robbed your life savings giving you a 100 quid back to ease the pain. I hope for all my friends and family that the team go on to do great things, win the trophies that I have dreamed about us winning, sign the players I have dreamt about us signing and thoroughly stuff United every time they play them. Maybe this is just an initial reaction and it will become easier with time. I doubt it.