Arrested Development - Reading Between The Police Lines by Matt Riley: 2014

Arrested Development: Reading Between The Police Lines

by Matt Riley

26th October, 2014

Police United and Reading FC owner Samrit Bunditkitsada must be wondering why he decided to get involved in football now his two massively-funded projects are showing the financial certainty of a Tesco profit forecast. He spent £25 million on a ninety percent stake in the recently top-flight club and wiped out their twenty one million pound debt, but while he was away from his Thai club in England, their season spiralled into what looks like a terminal decline. 

The bare facts suggest a man with no previous experience in running one football club (he made his money in insurance) needs to take a hard look at how he is running two. Samrit naively believes his bid was accepted over a higher one from American consortium Phoenix because he played an hour's five aside at Reading's training centre whilst still in his business suit. His naivety reaches Premier League levels when he reports how Sir John Madejski, the man who made his millions selling second hand cars, chose his bid because:

"I am a young person who loves the game and really wants to develop the club with no strings attached."

Hmm...

Although the face of the consortium is Khunying Sasima Srivikorn, Samrit is the money and power behind the group, so he needs to explain the faltering progress in the Home Counties and his home country. Reading sit seventeenth in the Championship on a terrible run of results that coincided with the Thai consortium's interest. Since their 3:2 win at home against Millwall on September 16th, they have lost four, drawn two, scored four (three in one game against Wolves) and conceded thirteen. 

For his Thai club Police United, despite massive investment in players on breathtakingly inflated wages and contract lengths, "The Cops" are odds-on for relegation after nine wins in thirty five games. They may only be saved if Singhtarua's hefty nine point deduction for crowd violence is upheld and they replace Police United in the relegation zone. But even that won't work if they don't win the season's final three games, two of which are away and end at champions Buriram United.

The success Thai duty free monopolists King Power now enjoy under the chairmanship of another young billionaire Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha at Leicester City doesn't mean it was always easy for him either. Vichai bought The Foxes in 2010 after three years of shirt sponsorship, so has effectively now had seven years to achieve this season's result of reaching the English Premier League. He can make bold statements like those in May when he outlined a three year, one hundred and eighty million pound (Or Ronaldo's little toe) plan to reach the top five, but that follows years of unglamorous reconstruction. 

Having already ploughed one hundred and twenty million pounds into The Foxes and got the Leicester City fans onside by respecting their history (and team colour, Mister Tan) Vichai has helped erase the nonsense of a certain Thai fugitive at Maine Road. The same year that Vichai started his shirt sponsorship of Leicester, Manchester City were bracing themselves for a turbulent twelve months of ownership by former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Coincidentally, like Leicester City, the billionaire turned to Sven Goran Erikson and, just like with them, the Swedish lothario was soon to be shown the exit door. 

Like the Teflon coated politician he is, Thaksin "Sinatra" sold the club to current owner Sheikh Mansoor for a huge profit. Vichai has been able to cleanse the stench left by what used to be known as a typically City chapter and, with so many Thai billionaires around with money to burn (he is only the eleventh richest billionaire in the Kingdom) Singha Corporation's Birhombakhdi family or Thaibev's Sirivadhanabhakdhi clan could easily be persuaded to offload a billion or two on the English game to keep their kids occupied.

One bizarre aspect of this Thai control of English clubs is that here coaches are changed like a pair of socks, but both Reading and Leicester City's Thaierarchy have shown more patience with the men in the dugout. The Foxes have had three coaches in their four Thai years (Nigel Pearson now back in his second spell at the club) and, despite their poor form, Reading have stuck by their man of two years Nigel Adkins. Samrit's Police United are on their fourth coach this season and the TPL have seen off twenty six coaches and counting so far with three games left. 

An incredible seventeen coaches have already lost their jobs in the Championship this season after only thirteen games (second place Watford amazingly being on coach number four, former SCG Muang Thong coach Slavisa Jokanovic) so it is not only Thailand that hires and fires, but the EPL (partly because they are so expensive to dispense with) have only outright sacked one coach this season in Tottenham's Tim Sherwood. If this stability for Thai-owned clubs works abroad, it is odd to a Western mind why it can't be applied here. Maybe one day it will be and Thai football can start to stabilise its training staff but, as long as team failures provoke overbearing owners to sacrifice coaches to save face, it isn't wise to hold our breath.

For a man who made his millions from insurance, Samrit Bunditkitsada's behaviour seems like the midlife crisis of a man who previously spent every working day in the safe confines of risk assessment and wants to rebel against it. With the vast sums at his disposal he should be able to stabilise the Reading situation and get Police United back up to the top flight next year, but The Royals are four points above the relegation zone whilst Police are four points from safety. A fast car and young lover might look pathetic for a forty year old, but it works out a lot cheaper and more glamorous than away trips to Scunthorpe United and TTM-Customs.