Caltex Inks Sponsor Deal With FAT by Matt Pongudom: 1998

Caltex Inks Sponsor Deal With FAT 
by Matt Pongudom
April 1998

CALTEX Oil (Thailand) yesterday announced a contribution of Bt71 million to the Thailand national football league in exchange for rights to three years as the league's title sponsor. With the deal, the Johnnie Walker Thailand League -- the league's name over the past two years -- will now be renamed the Caltex Premier League. League play begins on May 2 and will end on Oct 3.

The announcement was made at a contract-signing ceremony held at the Siam Intercontinental Hotel involving the Football Association of Thailand (FAT), Caltex and sports-marketing firm IMG Services (Thailand). The league's secondary sponsors, Adidas, Canon, Sanyo and Mazda, were also present.

''The sponsorship of sports activities reinforces our 'Energy in Action' theme,'' said Richard Abrams, managing director of Caltex. ''We believe an association with football in Thailand is particularly timely and appropriate. Recent research tells us that the economic downturn has not diminished the positive Thai spirit and a prudent pursuit of leisure activities.''

The opening ceremony and the opening matches of the Caltex Premier League will take place this Saturday at 4 pm at the National Stadium. After the opening ceremony, Thailand FA Cup champions Sinthana will take on Tero Satsana and 1997 League winners Royal Thai Air Force will play Bangkok Bank.

''To give the Thailand National team every opportunity to prepare for the Asian Games, our sponsorship includes a pre-games international tournament that will be known as the Caltex Cup,'' Abrams said.

The Caltex Premier League consists of 12 teams: Bangkok Bank, Osotspa, Port Authority of Thailand, U-com Rajpracha, Royal Thai Air Force, Royal Thai Army, Krung Thai Bank, BEC Tero Sasana, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, Sinthana, Thai Farmers Bank and Telephone Organisation of Thailand (TOT).

FAT secretary-general Worawi Makudi said: ''It is another historical time for Thai football to keep moving our professional league forward and make it bigger. If we cannot run our league, we will never be able to fight with other international teams. So each league team has to run its club professionally to produce good players in order to represent the country in international tournaments.''