by Matt Riley
3rd December, 2014
Yesterday's decision by FIFA that Singhtarua would not be docked six points if they agreed to pay the outstanding wages of former player Matthias Christen was the last sputtering of the Siam Sport/ Muang Thong axis of control. Used to manipulating all aspects of Thai football and grazing on the tastiest of upcoming talents to either freeze or toss aside, the Thai football landscape has changed, leaving them an island of diminishing size with every turn of the tide.
It's not only the headlining-grabbing realignment of provincial clubs around new flags that shows the end of the SS as a Thai football controller. Recently, Muang Thong's second team were targeted for some outrageous verbal and physical abuse due to their connections to the Twin Quillins. Including players being punched in the face during a match and going unpunished, a dossier was created to present to the FAT.
However, just before it was to be presented, Coach Sean Sainsbury was advised to drop the subject as the FAT were not keen to pursue it. This behaviour is indefensible and shows the ultimately spineless nature of the FAT. They are scared of their paymasters and then, in turn, scared of the new force in Thai football from the provinces. They stand for nothing and cannot muster even the semblance of backbone or morality.
Now, examples of outrageous match manipulation (once the preserve of Muang Thong) fall squarely in the Newin Chdichop camp. The startling bias shown by officials at Chonburi's recent game against Chainat laid bare the political connections between the Buriram supremo and his fellow Alpha Male Anucha Nakasai. The Siam Sport financed FA flexed their increasingly feeble muscles by banning referee Chaiya Mahaprab for eighteen months, but the deal had already been done and the Thai FA were simply caught up in the slipstream of a much bigger vessel cruising into the sunset.
On the same night, The Bomber Thanom Borikut dutifully delivered a win for politically powerful Police United with a jaw-dropping display of gall, but this Bangkok-based club didn't have the power to control the last game against Buriram United and they look like being relegated, even though they expected Singhtarua or TOT to take their place. Writ large, that is the difference between the provincial alliances and a shrinking group of bickering Bangkok-based clubs seeing their support base and political clout overshadowed by the arriviste out-of-towners
Muang Thong were recently put up for sale but, with no one comfortable with what has now become a toxic brand, they decided to take the club off the market. They approach next season with a coach too expensive to sack (despite their desperation to do so), their worst place of fifth this season and being no longer the FAT's darlings. Thai national warmup games and the Kings Cup tournament have now been switched to PTT supremo (despite his constant downplaying) Suwat Liptapanlop's Nakhon Ratchasima and BEC Tero are the focus of Asian attention for the growth of young Thai talent.
It is difficult to feel sorry for the club and media giant after what they have done over the last decade, but their fans deserve better than to be treated with suspicion and dislike. The vast majority of them are good people, but they are caught in the middle of a seismic karma realignment that is finally bringing their club to book for the kind of monopoly practices that would even make FIFA wince.
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