One of the more intriguing features of Thaksin’s post-coup career has been his, now successful, bid for ownership of Manchester City football club. New Mandala is pleased to provide this detailed analysis of the bid, and its implications for the Manchester City club and football more generally, by political scientist and Manchester City supporter Thad Williamson: thad-williamson-2007.pdf
Here is an extract.
Why exactly is Thaksin buying this team, and what does he want to do with it? No one pretends that Thaksin is a lifelong City supporter, even if he has evidently done a little bit of research on the club’s history. Nor is it clear that Thaksin carries a lifelong passion for football itself.
This leads to the worry that Thaksin has an ulterior motive for buying the club at this time. The most likely such motive is not profit, as with the American owners of Manchester United and Liverpool. Rather, the most likely such motive is building up his personal prestige both in Thailand and throughout Asian. That a Thai could come to own a major sporting institution such as Manchester City will surely strike many Thais as a major point of pride, and a potentially invaluable propaganda boost for Thaksin.
The worry then is this: does Thaksin intend to use his association with City to help leverage a return, directly or indirectly, into Thai politics? Doing so would carry grave risks for the club: the club’s fortunes should not be held hostage to, or be intertwined with at all, ongoing controversies in internal Thai politics. (The government has indicated it will seek to extradite Thaksin to stand legal charges if he does not return to Thailand by the end of July, and is also investigating the funds Thaksin is using to acquire City. Some in the Thai media speculate Thaksin is buying City precisely to improve his chances of fighting extradition.)
Put simply, it’s one thing if on a whim Thaksin has decided to entertain himself and while away the hours running a Premiership club, quite another if City is going to be used as a pawn in a larger political agenda. If City fans were to make one demand of Thaksin as the moment, it should be not to buy back Shaun Wright-Phillips as soon as possible, but for him to state in no uncertain terms that he has retired from Thai politics, that he will refrain from any extensive involvement in future Thai politics, and that his attention will be fully on City.
That would be good for the club; and, once the junta gives way and new elections are staged, it might be good for Thai democracy as well. Taking Thaksin out of the long-term equation might once again free up space for the grassroots democratic forces that made so much progress in Thailand in the 1990s to re-assert themselves and set the country on a more democratic path than that foreseen by either Thaksin or the coup plotters. In that way, ironically, Manchester City might be doing Thais and Thai democracy a favor, precisely by taking Thaksin and his problematic vision of a corporate-managed society off their hands.
13 responses so far ↓
1 anon // Jul 3, 2007 at 7:05 pm
And Thaksin has stated in uncertain terms in public how many times now, that he has retired from Thai politics? Heck, he’s been banned from Thai politics.
The junta is actually pulling him back into politics. Instead of letting him ride off into retirement and manage a football club, it insists on freezing all of his assets, including those assets gained before he became Prime Minister. What practical choice does he have but to fight the junta?
2 observer // Jul 3, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I am sure the Thai electorate does not need Thad Williamson telling them how to vote. It is amazingly arrogant to tell the citizens of a country what is best for them, when it appears the real motiive is protecting a lousy football team.
Perhaps he would like to provide a few examples of how military governments have been better for the countries of the world than democratically elected pro-business ones. Or perhaps he could enlighten me as to how a legacy of military coups have done Thai democracy favors – as if that was really his concern at all.
I’m sorry if his favorite football team may be tarnished by this whole thing, he seems to have let this issue unbalance his sense of proportionality.
If it turns out that he is under the age of 14, I take this all back.
3 jeru // Jul 3, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Anon your anosmia does not have to be a permanent impairment . . . all you have to do is to unglue your nose from the Thaksin backside once a while to get a dose of fresh oxygen in your nasal cavities. Maybe that would clear too the brain befuddlement you suffer about why it is necessary to bring Thaksin Shinawatra to account for the many alleged criminal corruption committed during his rule.
In South Korea I will remind you Anon that already two of their ex-Prime Ministers, Roh and Chun, were jailed for corruption. Thailand too should be able to succeed in jailing its more corrupt more dangerous ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra because his corruption, had certainly cost the Kingdom of Thailand much more than the relative money value suggests.
4 Thad Williamson // Jul 4, 2007 at 2:55 am
Observer, I find your comment puzzling, because it completely misrepresents my position and my intentions.
Did you read the article or just the extract? In the article I make it perfectly clear that I think the coup was unjust and that ultimate legitimacy in a democratic society does come from the ballot box. If Thaksin wants to return to politics and the Thai electorate wants to re-elect him, that is fine by me.
I just don’t think MCFC should be a vehicle for furthering that project. That’s bad for the club, and I also would question whether having a a very wealth man leverage ownership of a sports team into political capital would be a healthy precedent for Thailand (or anyone else).
I do also make the point that if Thaksin were to go the opposite path and simply sink all his energies into running the club, that development should actually placate harsh critics of Thaksin who oppose his vision for Thailand, precisely because he’ll be running a football club, not a country.
That point does not and is not intended to deny the moral right of Thais to elect who they choose, it’s simply an analytic point that recognizes the political reality that Thaksin has many harsh critics who believe his vision for Thai society was/is problematic. THOSE people conceivably should be among the happiest if Thaksin spends the rest of his days watching football, hiring coaches, and signing players.
5 nganadeeleg // Jul 4, 2007 at 10:31 am
Anon & Observer: The junta’s big mistake was not freezing his assets sooner – it might have alleviated a lot of problems in the meantime.
We also have to remember that a freeze is not confiscation (yet).
Will you continue to be so forgiving of Thaksin if it also turns out that he and his family have spirited funds away abroad, and not fully disclosed assets (again)?
6 observer // Jul 4, 2007 at 11:18 am
Thad Williamson,
I plead guilty to only having read the extract. But I am only a blog commenter, not an academic. That’s the way blog culture often works.
I accept your point that MCFC should not be a vehicle for furthering Thailand’s politics, but after all it is just a football team. I apologize if my concerns for Thailand’s poor may be greater than for a foriegn football club. But this is afterall a blog on Asia.
It is a difficult task to mix discussion of your pet football club with controversial politics. You may have done it well in the full article. However, the quote that i cited does make it appear that your concern is not the best interest of Thai people, but the image of your MCFC.
Yes, Thaksin has many harsh critics. I have been one. But the presence of critics and accustations is not by itself a cause for banishment. There are many harsh critics of the junta and new constitution and would be more if they weren’t repressed. But I guess that’s OK as long as they don’t covet your football team.
7 Thad Williamson // Jul 4, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Observer, please read the essay before passing judgment on what you think my concerns are.
For the record though, rest assured that I fully recognize that the welfare of Thailand as a nation ranks way, way higher on the scale of importance than my favorite soccer team and many other things beside. At the same time, my primary audience for this piece (it was written for a newsletter for City fans) consists of people who honestly care a lot more about City than they do about Thailand or many other places in the world (a fact I don’t condemn–it’s human nature to care more about the things that are most immediately involved in your life than those that are distant), so yes the piece is a delicate balancing act. But I did see the article as an opportunity to introduce those same readers to at least some of the issues in Thailand, albeit in a very preliminary way (I am certainly a novice myself).
I’m curious though about your implicit argument that Thaksin’s buying the club will be in the “best interest of Thai people.” Really? How does that work? If you could make a good case for that, I would be very interested to hear it.
The best case I can think of would be someone arguing from what Andrew Walker recently described as an “anti-coup/anti-Thaksin” position that post-coup prospects for democracy in Thailand woud be strengthened if Thaksin was no longer on the scene because he is too much of a lightning rod at this point and because the military will not yield power if they think he is coming back. That is the kind of argument I had in mind in the extract that is on the site.
But if there are other arguments to the effect that Thaksin’s buying Manchester City is going to hasten the end of military rule in Thailand, I’d be glad to hear them.
8 observer // Jul 4, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Thad Williamson
I have reread my comment and don’t see that I implied Thaksin’s purchase of MCFC would benefit Thai people. I don’t think it will. in fact, I don’t even think it will benefit Thaksin. I see it as evidence that he has not managed to conquer the egotistical approach that was his doom once already. I don’t have enough interest in the issue to read or essay or comment further. I don’t think that should prohibit me from commenting on the portion that was published. If you were gneral Sonthi, you could arrest me, but (I hope) you are not.
nganadeeleg,
When will the Thaksin obsessives finally see that an argument against the coup is not the same as Thaksin worship. Alas, i already know the answer: Too late. But just because you welcomed a military dictatorship doesn’t mean you are going to like it. Let’s see if you are singing the same tune in six months.
I thought that Thaksin should have been banned from office during the original asset trial, now seven or so years ago. I’m not opposed to convicting him of crimes and jailing him if the evidence indicates that he is guilty. I would not be surprised if he is. I would throw a small party if Newin or a few others met justice.
However, to claim that Thaksin is the devil and others are good, when the difference between their actions is indiscernable is hipocracy and fraud.
Do you realy belive that Banharn, Chavalit, and the current junta are really that different? Why don’t we pursue the Klong Tan Dam incident, which seems on the face of it far, far worse than the Ratchada land purchase, for example. Or is that one OK because Suwat is now anti-Thaksin?
Do you think it is fair that Thaksin faces ten years in prison for failure to disclose assets when a horde of Thai politicians and military figures have looted this country into poverty and laughed all the way to the bank. Look, I don’t care if Thaksin gets hit twice as hard as the others, I just would like to see the result based on justice not retribution.
One of the best things that could have happened, in my mind, would have been to prove that Thaksin’s was a criminal regime in an open honest way that would have convinced those that had not already converted. That hasn’t happened.
Yes, it will be easy to pin a few crimes on Thaksin. Fine. I will shed no tears. But keep in mind that this level of scrutiny would have found an equal amount of crimes investigating virtually any government Thailand has ever had – including the current one. In fact the investigations surely would have found more against Thaksin, but it seems that many of the issues are off limits. The interest seems to be only in crimes that convict Thaksin alone.
This is a political purge, pure and simple. That fact that the victim may desreve it would only be relevenat if he deserved it more than the purgers.
9 Thaipaul // Jul 4, 2007 at 6:42 pm
How utterly bigotted. To think that the Thai people would bring shame on an english football club. I would think a bunch of english football hooligans running riot swearing their mouths off and sticking two fingers at opposing teams could do nothing but bring great shame on the Thai people and even Thaksin. If anything, Thaksin really ought to think twice about this venture because it can only bring shame on Thailand and Thai people.
Get real for god sake!
10 observer // Jul 4, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Thad Williamson,
I have just read your essay and will admit that I basically agree with your description of the Thaksin regime. I do think it was balanced and accurate. It is odd that you chose to end the essay in a way that appeared to betray this.
I would note that although Thaksin was brutal beyond justification, drugs have been a major problem in Thailand, and especially for the Thai poor. Historically the military has been far more closely linked to drug dealing than politicians. You were also accurate, unlike most of the anti-Thaksin crowd, in not assigning blame for much of what has happened in the South, especially the massacre at Krue Sae Mosque where Thaksin’s minister of defense ordered troops to hold fire and was overriden by the military.
At the end of the day, i would be happy if Thaksin concentrated his efforts on running a football team and was banished from Thai politics forever. But again, the issue at hand seems to be the relentless grip the military has on power. Perhaps they could also be persuaded to buy a team or two. Surely the military has stolen more than Thaksin.
11 Pd // Jul 7, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Thanks for a good article, However I would like to accept this article under the condition of major revision i.e. borderline.
To my idea, I think that you did not do much research on Thai Politics in this article. If I am not wrong, I saw you referred to only a Chris Baker’s book.
May I recommend some other works? Probably you could turn this article to be publishable in some respectable journals.
Here
)
1. Duncan McCargo, University of Leeds
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/thaipol/duncan.htm
(So he may be a Leed United fan
Especially, I recommend you to read
- Duncan mcCargo, Pacific Review, “Network monarchy and legitimacy crises in Thailand”, Volume 18, Number 4, December 2005
2. Kevin Hewison, Professor, Asian Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
3. The King Never Smiles by Paul Handley. (This book is very popular among Thai abroad people)
4. http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php
12 Thad Williamson // Jul 8, 2007 at 8:46 am
Thanks, PD. I will look those up.
13 Thaksin skeptic // Aug 8, 2007 at 5:24 pm
[...] keep up on events at Manchester City since the Thaksin takeover. Previous New Mandala contributer Thad Williamson has created a new blog called Thaksin Skeptic: Supporting Manchester City, Supporting Human Rights. [...]
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