Thailand 3-2 Malaysia - Match Report by Matt Riley: 2014

AFF Suzuki Cup

Group B

Thailand 3-2 Malaysia

Jalan Besar Stadium, Singapore

26th November, 2014

Match Report

by Matt Riley

FAT Head Worawi Makudi made the journey to this evening's match armed with one million Baht for the players if they beat Malaysia. Reports that the two hour thunderstorm was caused by his arrival have yet to be confirmed, but there is usually a dark cloud not far behind the diminutive overseer of Thailand's tailspin over the last decade. 

The only cup final appearance between these countries came in the first tournament of 1996 when Thailand came out 1:0 winners. Since then, Thailand have accumulated a hat trick of championships whilst Harimau Malaya won it once, beating Indonesia in 2010. Thailand also have the upper hand in both semi-final encounters. They won 2:0 in 2000 and 3:1 last time out, but the five group stage match ups have been more even. Both teams have won two and there has been one draw. Thailand made five changes from the team that beat Singapore. 

Out went Notechaiya, Boonyong and Daosawang from defence, leaving only Piomrakth (on a yellow card) from the last match. Deeprom and Tossakrai were taken out of midfield as Narubadin, Saruwat, captain Anucha, Tanaboon and twinkle toes Chanathip started in a bold move by coach Kiatisuk Senamuang. Malaysia had the enforced absence of red-carded Gary Robbat, but Azammudin also made way with Safiq Bin Rahim and Mod Safee starting down the spine of the team in midfield and upfront respectively. 

This was a matchup of the thundering Malaysian players who lacked pace but had power and the lightning fast Thai players striking all over the pitch, particularly the wide areas where the Malaysian defenders were reluctant to be dragged out of position for fear of being exposed for pace. Malaysia stuck with their 4-4-2 formation and Thailand their more flexible, but brittle under pressure, 4-2-3-1.Thailand increasingly dominated possession from the start and regularly bore down on the Malaysian goal orchestrated by Chanatip. He put Kirati through on nine minutes but his shot was smartly saved by Che Mat. Kunalin was lucky not to be cautioned on 13 minutes for his barge on Tanaboon. 

Then came the Malaysian goal. Yah Yah was given too much time to line up his shot from the edge of the area and his hard, low strike went past Kawin's despairing hands and into the bottom right hand corner of his net. The game was dynamic and open with both teams continuing to trade shots from outside the area as the half started its third act. Chanathip should have equalised from the edge of the area on 32 minutes after excellent linking play down the right, but his hard low strike flashed past the post. 

Thailand took Kirati off after 41 minutes for Adisak and seconds after coming on he got the equaliser. A beautifully weighted and angled cross from Chappuis down the left was smartly turned in under intense pressure beneath the despairing body of Che Mat. It was fully deserved for the War Elephants, but Safee almost hit an outrageous equaliser from inside his own half that struck the Thai crossbar with Kawin a spectator.

Kunalan was taken off at half time by Malaysia for Indra Putra who was immediately cautioned for a scything challenge on Narubadin. After five minutes the game reverted to the first half of mesmerising runs by the Thais keeping Harimau Malaya on the back foot with the increasing concern that their first-game draw created. After 55 minutes the Thais took off Sarawut and brought on Chainarong as a sign of attacking intent now they had the ascendency: a creative and brave move by Thai coach "Zico." But on sixty minutes Safiq was allowed to waltz through the heart of the Thai defence and, as the defence parted in front of him, he placed his low shot powerfully past Kawin's left hand and into the net. 

Malaysian captain Shukor was cautioned on 65 minutes for a kick out at Chanatip, but the Thais were being closed down much more effectively in the second forty five. Afif was given unbelievable space on 70 minutes in the Thai six yard box, but the defender showed why he should be kept well away from the opposition box with a shot like a sand wedge. Chanathip struck the Malaysian post with Che Mat well beaten on 72 minutes but seconds after Thailand were back in it when Chanatip laid it back for Chappuis to gleefully slam the ball into the net. 

Norshahrul was taken off for Manaf, but seconds earlier Adisorn was very lucky to escape a red card when his kindergarten-powered elbow off the ball wasn't spotted by the officials. That might come back to haunt him. Chainarong was taken off for Thailand for Prakit on eighty minutes and Thailand were now in complete control with Chanathip running the show. In the last minute Shukor came off for Hafiz, but seconds before the end Adisak (who was lucky to be on the pitch) beautifully touched the ball forward in the Malaysians box to escape his marker before emphatically slamming it past Che Mat.

The Thai will feel like a million dollars after this win, but they will have to settle for Thai Baht for now.

 

Man of the match: Chanathip. Mesmerising, unpredictable and a force of nature. 

NEW!! All Together Now? by Matt Riley: 2020

All Together Now?
by Matt Riley
1/9/20

The fractious, polarized Thai football universe has now had this forced hiatus to recharge, reflect and renew. But more importantly (and less likely) it has also been a chance to take a long, hard look at itself in the mirror.

And now, more than ever, Thai football as a product needs to attract the attention of current, future and lapsed fans. On the plus side, for Thai clubs with the muscle to qualify for the AFC, the shop window could just be about to expand. European channel Sport1 will broadcast the competition in Austria, Switzerland and, most intriguingly, Germany. With the large amount of German visitors to the Kingdom (there were over 800,000 of them in 2019) not to mention the half a million or so who have made Thailand their home, there is an attractively large, football friendly audience open to sampling another spicy Thai dish.

But big competition is about to arrive close to home. Not only is the J League a far superior product with extensive English content, a national team inside FIFA’s top thirty ranking (one hundred and thirteen places above Thailand) but they have astutely cherry picked some of Thailand’s best talent to put on display and whet Thai appetites. “Pocket Rocket” Chanathip Songkrasin at Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo grabs most of the headlines, but elegant left back Theerathon Bunmathan at Suphanburi FC’s partner club Yokohama F Marinos is another Thai export with the potential for a bigger league (although, at thirty, Theerathon’s extra four years over Chanathip makes that unlikely).

Behind these A list Thai exports come two high profile, but less regionally impactful players. Technically, Chanathip’s teammate Kawin Thamsatchanan is on loan from Belgian First Division team OH Leuven, but it is unlikely that Leicester City’s feeder club are going to call for his return. Despite his famed professionalism and a positive start at the club, a foot injury and long layoff saw him slide down the pecking order and he was only to make eleven appearances for the club as third choice stopper. 

Teerasil Dangda fills the final spot. Now coming to the end of his storied career, he has put aside an ill-fated spell at Spanish Segunda Division club Almeria and the double bagel of appearances and goals at Manchester City to complete a solid spell at Sanfrecce Hiroshima before joining current club Shimizu S-Pulse. Now, those players will activate Thai fans for coverage of The Levain Cup (the equivalent of England’s Carabao Cup) on Siam Sport in Thailand and the J. League's international YouTube channel. Its forty-five thousand subscribers would get a big boost if it could mainline Thai football fans, particularly if more young Thai talent could be persuaded to make the very challenging jump up to Japan.

Thailand’s lukewarm attempts at international marketing will then come under enormous pressure. Japanese football is driven by a more powerful engine than the ponderous, meek Thai FA attempts. Dentsu Sports Network, based in Tokyo, have the hunger for “eyeballs” and the need to show a return on investment. They are not mired in political point scoring. Sports media is in their DNA. They are not confined to vested interests and regional gerrymandering. They also have the huge financial muscle of revenue exceeding a trillion Yen (seven billion pounds) and over sixty thousand employees to develop a global footprint and regional power. Most importantly, they need to focus on added value for their clients in globally recognised standards of success, not stroking the feathers of high-profile political figures.

The best example of how nimble and three dimensional the J League’s marketing machine is came with the signing by Vissel Kobe of Barca legend Andres Iniesta. Using the leverage of Japanese technology firm Rakuten’s sponsorship of the Catalan giants, this player met the twilight of his career as part of a joined up strategy that held so much more merit than sacks of Saudi money or an annual title procession at Qatari cash cows PSG. Rakuten bought Kobe in 2015, so they controlled the asset and his platform. They created Iniesta TV for their new brand, sitting as it did as part of the Rakuten sports streaming service, but also as a platform to promote the wider Japanese game globally. They understood that, when the tide of Japanese football rises, all the club boats will float. But they didn’t focus only on these macro decisions; they oversaw the micro environment of Planet Iniesta too.

Rakuten’s brand partnership with the player is only part of a wider world brand association that is overseen by the company’s own team, a very astute way of filtering the relationships with the player and bolting on connections of their own. In a sense, Iniesta is a standalone brand that is filtered through a global Rakuten platform, a controlled ecosystem of targeting content to a clearly defined audience and as a strand in a clearly thought out strategy of Asian growth for Japanese football, followed by more global reach sitting on a solid local foundation.

Looking at the procession of household names who have limped through Thai football on their way out to pasture with very little more than global rubbernecking of a career being extinguished, the difference is stark and should be a wakeup call to those with stewardship of the Thai game. If Thai football is to avoid slick colonisation from a J League determined to activate a football loving Thai population increasingly uninspired by some of the insipid offerings on their doorstep, the nettle needs to be grasped. Without collegiality, there is only inefficiency. Without a strategy there is only improvisation. Without leadership, there is only tribalism. Thai fans deserve so much more. And now is the time, for once, for the game’s controllers to put the people that fight through dispiriting traffic to watch fractious and staccato games at the heart of the Thai football future, not taken for granted and marginalised. The J League juggernaut is fired up and ready to roll.

The Aussies Are Coming by Matt Riley: 2014

The Aussies Are Coming
by Matt Riley
14/7/14

PTT Rayong's team last weekend at Suphanburi included three Australian players. Although that remains an exception to the rule, a developing trend shows the increasingly muscular pulling power of the Thai Premier League and the advantages of having a plus one "Asian" in the team. Watching Sisaket's Australian Brent McGrath (Pictured) slamming in the winner in last night's victory against TOT shows how the Thai market for ageing and lower level Korean and Japanese players is becoming saturated, whilst Australia is a new horizon to explore (for those astute enough to look). Four teams currently have a total of six Aussies in their squads. This is a small percentage of foreigners from other countries, but it is a number set to rise for a range of reasons.

Economically, Australian signings, for the first time in Thai football history, make sense. When Police United feel they need to offer ageing Ivorian Dangno Siaka a three year contract on one million Baht (thirty one thousand US dollars) a month, then it only needs a little organisation (which goes a long way in Thai football) to find much better value with just as much skill and a more accurate birth certificate. One of the key drivers of the Aussie arrival is the wage ceiling in their native A League. Only three "marquee" players in each squad are exempt from this salary cap. The annual budget for a club's non marquee players is two and a half million Australian dollars.  Seventy five million Baht a season is far less than at least three of the major Thai Premier League clubs and some of the outrageous spending but underachieving smaller outfits.

There are huge inequalities of income between players here in Thailand (ironically, Dagno was one of the lowest paid foreign players at Muang Thong United) and, as Robbie Fowler found when he made the switch from the A League, everything is up for grabs: a love struck Thai club will pay anything, backed by huge reserves of sponsorship and political cash. Fowler's fifty thousand US dollar monthly wage (before his raft of endorsements and bonuses) would pay for the annual salary of a minimum wage A League player with change.  This minimum salary is A$50,000 (1.5 million Baht) which shows the importance of collective agreements in the A League. The three youth player contracts permitted in an A League franchise must offer at least  A$40,000 (1.2 million Baht), with their payments not included in the salary cap.

This is a creative way to both support the development of youth players and encourage clubs to add them to their roster, without their expense subtracting from their senior player budget.  This minimum A League annual salary adds up to exactly the amount Police United pay each month for Dagno and Adnan Barakat and less than the monthly income of SCG Muang Thong United's Mario Djurovski, so the Thai financial incentive is clearly huge.

When you look at the experience Australian players add to the TPL, they also have a great deal to offer. Reviewing the careers of the "PTT Three," they combine two appearances for West Ham United, twenty two Australian caps and vast experience in the physically demanding A League that plays in a way perfectly suited to the AFC Champions League. If anything was needed to illustrate that, you only have to review the ACL progress of Australian teams this year. Whilst Central Coast Mariners finished bottom of Group F they chalked up two wins, whilst Melbourne Victory lost out on progress from Group G by the narrowest of goal average margins.

On August 20th, when single Champions League victors Buriram take on failed to qualify SCG Muang Thong United in the Thai Premier League, Western Sydney Wanderers will be slugging it out with Chinese superpower Guangzhou Evergrande for a place in the AFC Champions League semi final. Australia may have been allocated two group stages places compared to Thailand's one, but it remains am excellent Aussie return on investment.

Dealing with Australia is to work with a First World country that sticks to internationally recognised standards. That means the age of a player will tally with when he was born and agents (from their side at least) will be FIFA licensed and monitored. It also means Thai clubs can be more confident that what they paid for is what they get. It also accounts for another Aussie trend where a small but increasing number of foreign players may not be Australian, but they have built a career in the A League. Players like Dutch born Indonesian Sergio van Dijk made over one hundred appearances for Brisbane Roar and Adelaide United and has fitted straight into the heat and tempo of Thai football.

The temperament of Australian footballers is also attractive to Thai teams. Giant Aussie midfielder Eric Paartalu is a good example of the hard playing but calm approach of many Australian players. The SCG Muang Thong United man accepts the histrionics going on around him and concentrates on his own game. This mentality decreases the yellow cards collected, keeping them on the field for longer. Foreign players like Robbie Fowler who try to address the pantomime only end up in the referees book, as he did when rolling a player feigning injury near the touch line off the pitch and being rewarded with a card.

As word gets back of the high salaries and cash bonuses handed out to TPL players by the bagful, expect to see more and more Australian players make the switch. This trend started when Teerasil Dangda rejected a move East because he would need to take a pay cut three years ago and looks set fair to be the latest trend in Thai football. The game over here will be better for it, Australian players will earn far more than at home and the Thai game will have another chance to improve: whether it takes up the invitation is another matter entirely.

Put Your Shirt On It by Matt Riley: 2014

Put Your Shirt On It
by Matt Riley
8th June, 2014

Supporting Thai Division One side Saraburi is not a glamorous experience. The club expect fans to travel around the country from their provincial base one hundred kilometres North of Bangkok to the unspectacular stadiums of Big Bang Chula or Thai Tobacco Monopoly, and now they even expect the shirts off their backs. Playing doomed Nakhon Pathom United last weekend was prefaced by the kind of preparation that would let down a chimp's tea party.

Saraburi (the home team, by the way) couldn't locate a second kit and Nakhon Phatom (a club notorious for being shut down for two years in 2010 when a member of staff threatened a referee with a gun after a promotion play off game) hadn't brought one. A visit to the local shops (not surprisingly in a region proud to be the hub of "herbal Chinese pork sausage with iodine") came up with nothing. The club managed to fish some socks and shorts out of a kit bag, but it was the unwitting fans who had to hand over their shirts for the greater good of the club.

The Bangkok Casuals League still laughs about The Winking Frog's failure to provide an alternative kit a decade ago, but this is supposed to be a higher standard of oversight. There is a non league structure in Thai football called the King's Cup that feeds into a six league regional setup (skip that if you are a politician) which then moves on to the national Division 1, crowned by the glamour of the Thai Premier League.

So, a team that can legitimately expect to play at a thirty five thousand capacity stadium in Buriram next year forgets to bring a spare kit and, comically, irons on players' names to fans' shirts minutes before kick off. This being Thailand, both clubs blamed each other and accused their opposition of not communicating. It also says a great deal about Saraburi FC's merchandising power that their souvenir shop couldn't (or wouldn't) cough up a full set of away kit.

In contrast, fellow Saraburi-based Osotspa M150 (a club whose location is elbowed aside by two sponsors) travel to mega grounds like Buriram's I-Mobile and the SCG Stadium. Although results on the field continue to be strong for the province's second representatives (now occupying the third promotion spot to the money bags Thai Premier League) there is clearly a long way to go off the field to match their efficiency on it.

The good news for the shirtless Saraburi supporters was the game finished in a one nil victory thanks to their generosity, when an automatic two goal defeat would be in store if they chose not to strip. If the club are promoted by a margin of three points or less, they owe a huge debt of gratitude to their fans for going over and above the call of duty.

FAT Busters: Let's Impose Martial Law On Thai Football by Matt Riley: 2014

FAT Busters: Let's Impose Martial Law On Thai Football

by Matt Riley

21st May, 2014

As we wake up to another depressing turn of the tortuous Thai political wheel under martial law, denials of a coup, ruled by a government without a leader and the Thai economy shrinking by an alarming 2.1% in the first quarter of this year, maybe it's time to stop complaining about the madness and embrace it in Thai football. 

 

For years, the ineptitude at the FAT elicited dark humour and shoulder shrugging, but what if we took a leaf from the book of Thai politics and stormed the football Bastille? Robert Procureur's recent outburst could start the le ballon rolling (and he would be the most qualified for guillotine duties.) There is a reservoir of rejected expertise that wants to develop the Thai game which, tapped into, would flood the dark recesses of our beautiful game with light and pulse with a creative energy that would be highly attractive to globally minded partners.

 

The first stage of the process is to get the biter bit. Tie the FAT up in huge swathes of legal red tape. With every dubious decision, file a complaint directly at its head and lodge the case in Norway. The sixteen thousand kilometre round trip for every minor legal update should cool the heels of the FAT head while we get on with running our game. Instead of the highly divisive two football associations in Indonesia, we should empower the legion of inmates against the wardens  of Thai football's madhouse. 

They currently feel disenfranchised and powerless, knowing that if they showed their heads above the parapet there would be more than a football rolling sadly down the road. When the FAT plant their compliant officials in games, the men in black  are invited into the VIP box to watch the game whilst other impartial and untainted officials lead the line. When fines are collected, we use them to finance grass root initiatives and support the women's game that is now within one game of qualifying for the World Cup in Canada thanks to very little FAT support.

 

 Instead of being seen as the People's Democratic Republic of Football, we should engage in dialogue with the AFC. FIFA are mired in cronyism and infighting as Blatter sharpens his knives for Platini over the Qatar farce, but our local governors are far more rigorous and open minded. They have to be, because they oversee a group of countries fighting for worldwide recognition and too often seen as a backwater and sunny clime for players to retire in. 

By implementing their key initiatives like Actual Playing Time, having strong Thai representation on their Ethics Committee and opening our football finances to root and branch assessment, Thai football can show how much it has to offer the region. If the game here can go from stronger to the J and K Leagues to vastly inferior in one decade, imagine how quickly it could go the other way with professional stewardship? The game here has so much to offer with (generally) well behaved and passionate fans, highly skilled players and rapidly improving stadia.

 

Our income will come from international sponsors. Recently, Citibank were prepared to underwrite a proposed academy league before this idea, orchestrated by former AIA CEO Ron van Oijen, was firmly rejected. Giving young players meaningful competition in a professionally run league was greeted with a mixture of bemusement and fear by the FAT, especially as eight major TPL teams had already signed up to the scheme. Quite rightly Ron, a man who previously managed a company of forty thousand staff, saw the pointlessness of begging for their support and the plan is shelved. There are plenty of other global brands happy to enter the dynamic and lucrative market place of Thai football without needing the strings of political largesse and favour trading. 

The Thai football market is strong enough for major companies to enter it on economic grounds. AIA drastically down scaled their sponsorship not because they failed to increase market share, but partly due to the non competitive practices of politicians using clubs as electioneering vehicles. Business partnerships with foreign clubs also have a great deal of merit. Most agreements are fluffily worded love notes from a star struck Thai club to foreign giants pleading with them to be gentle, but the model of J League team's Yokohama F Marinos shows an open and refreshingly honest approach. The Japanese giants want the following from their partners Suphanburi FC as set out in their Memorandum of Understanding signed last July:

 

"To provide opportunities for each other to meet sponsors of the partner side. To support each other in the commercial exploitation rights (introduction of sponsors in the partner country.)"

 

The War Elephant may be sharing the bed with two other clubs, but everyone, is clear about the situation and gets what they want. For Yokohama it was access to Truevisions via the Thai club President Varwut Silpa - archa. In return they will bring the President of the national Japanese broadcasters NHK over next week for some highly publicised flesh pressing and have tangible results to work on. For SCG Muang Thong United's "strategic partnership" with Athletico Madrid signed four years ago, their bed is extremely crowded with seven other clubs vying for the attention of the Spanish Champions: their meaningful connections would take a highly capable forensic scientist years to locate.

 

So, instead of the reverse alchemy currently transforming potential ASEAN  television gold into sawdust, a small group of brave souls can scale FAT tower, plant a fan flag above the penthouse conference room and dodge the ensuing bullets. Led by our spiritual leader Captain Kirk, his Star Trek Spectre of the Gun episode will be boldly emblazoned on our flag as we scamper back down to safety:

 

"I don't think we're going to have any choice. ... I know the bullets are unreal, therefore they cannot harm me."

Rip It Up and Start Again? by Matt Riley: 2014

Rip It Up and Start Again?

by Matt Riley

3rd August, 2014

Newin Chidchop's threat to take his club Buriram United out of the Thai Premier League and start his own shows you can take the man out of politics, but you can never take politics out of the man. The former banned MP is playing a clever game against arch enemy Worawi Makudi and the club he founded, bitter rivals SCG Muang Thong United. With Siam Sport's control of the league through their stacking of the Thai FA, they will deliver a return on their investment as long as their club remain successful. But Buriram United's recent dominance has badly damaged their dividend; and Newin knows it. 

His club, as the current champions and league leaders, have a strong hand. Taking them out of the TPL would materially weaken it and Siam Sport fear more who Newin might take with him. The SS don't know who will join Buriram in a splinter league, and it is this fear of the unknown that fuels their desperation  as they see their grip on the Thai football landscape continue to diminish. Clubs that have been on the wrong end of pre-Emerald Buddha decisions no longer fear the hand that feeds them. Newin can bring huge funds and profile to the table, but would it be a Brave New World, or manipulation using different hands?

 

The decision by Siam Sport to hand Buriram United's Spanish linchpin Carmelo Gonzalez an indefinite suspension for two acts of petulance that deserve a maximum of three matches makes two fundamental errors. The first is that it galvanises the rest of the team and gives them a martyr to fight even harder for. This was very clear yesterday when the four goals they scored against Suphanburi were followed by the players producing his shirt and bowing down to him while he watched from the stands. The second error showed desperation and naivety. 

If they had handed down a harsh but not outlandish sanction of five games, they could have gained a tactical advantage and Buriram may have swallowed it. This insane sanction for two yellow cards and a hissy fit when PTT's Kirati received a single game ban for a grotesque head high assault is a litmus test for where Newin goes next. He is certainly preparing the ground for a split and he is not a man for finessing or brinkmanship. He says something, he does something and that is it. He started with the delivery system of any league: the officials:

 

"Losing Carmelo to suspension isn't a problem for us. We can call upon other players in the team. But, the real problem is the quality and decisions of the referees."

 

The outside world seeing split top leagues will automatically compare Thailand to the mess in Indonesia. FIFA are, rightly, very skittish about fractured FAs. But the threat of doing it gives Newin strong leverage, especially with powerful regional TPL clubs who feel that, whilst their profile and big crowds have helped drive the league forward, they are largely ignored by the FAT. Losing them would materially weaken the claims of the Thai Premier League to represent the whole Kingdom, but Newin's cunning comments suggest he knows  this would only be a Pyrrhic victory for him. With the opening of ASEAN, Thai football would be in a weak position to develop its already strong profile in the second tier countries of South East Asia. The threat is all...

 

"It should not be long before it [the breakaway] happens. I'm always praying it would not come to that point. But, right now, there're more than half teams in the league, who felt the same as us."

Thai Football - Where No Good Deed Goes Unpunished by Matt Riley: 2014

Thai Football: Where No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
by Matt Riley
September, 2014

So the biggest game in Suphanburi's history on October 29th, an FA Cup semi final against mighty Chonburi FC, has been carefully planned for and, uniquely, there is no Buriram or SCG Muang Thong United looming large for Suphanburi in only their second season in the Thai Premier League. The chance to play in the AFC competitions as the FA Cup winner is a massive motivation to put aside a moderate league campaign and make sure we have the best chance of changing our club's destiny.

We have two new foreign signings in Marcio Rozario and Sergio van Djik who are not in the cup squad so, wisely, our three friendlies have used them extensively for the league matches coming up before the end of next month. We also have a player in Nije Divine who is only contracted for FA Cup games, so we have used him sparingly to build him up ready for the massive game against The Sharks in four weeks. This has also meant less playing time for our club captain as winnable league games are coming up and we want to ease him into the mega-match coming up. Coach Velizar Popov has organised it just right to make sure legs are spared and plans put in place for league and cup games. But, hold on, the match has been changed to six days from now at a different stadium and without a confirmed kickoff time.

For Suphanburi's opponents Chonburi, going for the authentic double they blitzed Nakhon Ratchasima in their last friendly with their full first team ( minus the two in Incheon for the Asian Games) whilst Suphanburi tinkered, rested and assessed a range of players for the game with BEC Tero and played six foreigners to rest Thai players for Sunday's league game with little importance against Osotspa M150.

Whatever happens later today for the national team against South Korea, they will play for the gold or bronze on Thursday and be expected to front up seventy two hours later for the biggest match so far this season. So the determination to register three points on Sunday for The Sharks has put them solidly on the front foot whilst, for Suphanburi,  scratchy friendly results against Bangkok FC and Tero didn't matter until now but, through no fault of their own, have come back to haunt them.

After a decade of criticising the fools at the FAT, I am only left with despair fatigue. Witnessing the organisational vortex of a group of men barely able to place one foot in front of the other without falling over doesn't even make me angry any more. Like catching my son listening to One Direction, I am just disappointed. The FAT told us last month month our goalposts were in breach of size regulations, but they hadn't started the tape measure from zero. This is the measure of their ineptitude and they deserve nothing but our utter contempt.

NEW!! Lost Connections: A Love Letter to Thai Football by Matt Riley: 2020

Lost Connections: A Love Letter to Thai Football

by Matt Riley

Thai football is maddening. Breweries and media giants control several clubs, fixing up fixtures where they essentially play themselves, whilst staccato matches of foul play and timewasting tomfoolery are overseen by barely competent officials swivelling fearful eyes to powerful shadows in the VIP boxes. Dark money seeks out laundering opportunities and franchise clubs on wheels roll across the Kingdom, leaving forgotten fans to forlornly fall back into the welcoming arms of the English Premier League. It seems a saddening spiral of diminishing returns. And yet. And yet. There is something about Thai football that infects your blood.

I grew up in the “Democratic Republic” (always run for cover when a country uses the word “democratic” in its title) of Malawi. The former British colony was allegedly ruled over by the eccentric Doctor Hastings Banda. I say allegedly because, officially born in 1898 (although even by his own admission this was a guess), it was whispered that the remarkably sprightly flyswatter-waving murderous dictator was a look-alike. But, looking back on our life in this barely functioning but beautiful country, there is a contradictory magnetic pull that the head repels whilst the heart embraces.

Which leads me nicely to Thai football. Since returning to England, I’ve been building bridges with my local club, Exeter City, using the same networking and leveraging skills that eventually opened Thai football doors. As a lecturer in Business at Exeter University I cunningly adapted the course to include The Grecians as a case study and visited the club with my students. Officially it was to give them insight for their forthcoming exam, but I was on a scouting mission of my own. As a fan owned club they exist on financial fumes, so I could see plenty of opportunities to help them and develop new revenue streams. This came to nought.

I then contacted the Chairman, Julian Tagg. Over an amenable breakfast in the city centre I laid out my business strategy. The ideas were well received, but they also came to nought. I even offered my services to fill the vacancy of matchday programme editor as a foot in the door, but the trend continued. I came to realise that, in English football, arriviste intruders will be forced out by the weight of history. Whatever I can offer, someone else whose whole family heritage has been steeped in the club’s history can do with more authority. In Thailand I was often in a job application cohort of one and, even if there were other Westerners looking to compete, I had the twin Unique Selling Points of being time rich and cheap.

I enjoy standing on The Big Bank terrace at Saint James’ Park with my friends and often wonder what it is that stops me enjoying it more (apart from the quality of football that’s often on display) and why I am often scanning around the stadium to catch Julian’s eye or see a process in need of my input. Their media officer has a pathological fear of being in front of the camera and I watch his fumblings with frustration. I realise that the reason for all this is my ego. Thai football eventually gave me a similar platform to his and I did a reasonable job. The genie has left the lamp. I can see through his unfocussed questions stuttered to coach Matt Taylor that, even as an inhouse piece of spin, Matt clearly finds them frustrating and uninspiring.  I have something to add. Without Thai football, I would not have briefly lifted the stage curtain and seen the mechanics of what went on behind.  I would not have the confidence to know how to do the jobs my terrace friends feel an awe towards.

Don’t get me wrong. My time working in Thai football was financially ruinous and, at my ripe old age, I shouldn’t be contemplating another financial meltdown. I have a sensible job and Responsibilities. But there is something about the beautiful madness of football in general (and Thai football in particular) that makes people feel, quite simply, more alive. Securing an interview with AIA’s CEO Ron van Oijen I expected to be squeezed into his busy schedule before being briskly shown the door. Instead, a man whose day was taken up with loss adjustment and asset allocation became animated and emotional about the game he clearly loved. His company were a big sponsor of Thai football at the time and he ended the (far longer than I had expected) meeting with a commitment to sponsor Thai League Football.

We met for lunch a few weeks later. Here I was with a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company eating an Italian meal under the Asoke BTS station. He told me how he was being nudged out of the company with a three year full salary package golden parachute, if he didn’t work for anyone else. At the time I was bringing in precisely zero to the family coffers. And yet, the feeling I got was that he wished he was doing my job. That’s the drug right there. For all the financial sacrifices and time away from the family, I was building my dream, not following it. I always knew that it wouldn’t last and we would have to come home one day, which gave each surreal experience an extra potency. In my mind I imagined during each bizarre experience that this would be my last day in Thailand so that, when that day came, I had taken in every little detail of the time before and stored them away in my mental filing cabinet.

Would I throw in my stable and lucrative career to pursue a highly speculative and insecure position if I had my time again? Was I right to avoid the oceans of money to be made as an unlicensed agent of ill repute? It’s a yes from me. For my wife and bank manager. Well, that’s a different story…

NEW!! Paul Parker Killed My Career by Matt Riley: 2020

Paul Parker Killed My Career

by Matt Riley

So; I’d finally made it. After years of struggle to promote my speciality product in the mini market of English content about Thai football, I had been asked onto the regional magazine show Fox Sports Central twice in the last week. The feedback from both shows was positive and I’d struck up a strong rapport with Fox’s affable host, Steve Dawson. Producers from Fox had been in touch to tell me that I would need to be a contracted member of the team going forward and that they would start to prepare the paperwork and send it from Singapore over to my base in Bangkok. Little did I know that the contract would take over a year to arrive and, thanks to former Manchester United and England legend Paul Parker, this would be the last time I would ever appear on the show…

I had developed a preshow routine over the previous weeks. Steve would send me the questions he wanted to touch on earlier in the day. I would start by researching the key points I wanted to develop and try (fairly) subtly to product place names of players I worked with like Charyl Chappuis into my answers. I also made sure I had my Suphanburi FC club shirt ready for product placement of the club sponsors. President Top was paying my wages after all. Once research was complete, I would walk around our “high so” local housing estate known as Hyde Park, silently mouthing the key points I wanted to hit (probably looking like a man two thirds of a bottle into the deadly Samsong local whisky to the wealthy locals) and working out how I could give Steve the best insight into the world of Thai football. Then it was back to check the Bangkok Post to see if their impressively forthright sports writer Tor Chittinand had any insights on the latest story and then I was pretty much set. The final job was to put Post Its with the key stats around the screen of my computer ready to drop into my Skype report and I was good to go.

But this time, things were different. Usually we would film in the mid afternoon so they had time to edit the content and check for timing. But the usual deadline came and went as I sat in my spare room going through my lines and coaching myself about keeping my head still with a well modulated voice that didn’t spin off into the cadences of local radio DJs. Later, much later and just before going on air, I had a message from the producer telling me that everything was pushed back as the previous guest (Paul Parker) had turned up late,  delaying everything else. This didn’t seem to be a problem at the time. The editing team seemed rushed and  stressed, but that was understandable with such a short deadline looming before the evening show. Anyway, I was prepared. Steve was the consummate professional, I knew his questions and was ready with my responses. What could possibly go wrong?

Usually we would go through everything before going on air, checking levels and the quality of the online connection. This time, the producer went through the problems of time with me and how we needed to crack on. The team in the editing booth were nervous but friendly and all desperate to get this segment done, so we dived in. I mentioned that I couldn’t hear Steve in the studio, but their increasing stress levels seemed to be focussing their mind less on getting this segment right and more on editing the click bait content of Paul Parker so that he came across well and would maybe recommend the show to some of his former Red Devils team mates.

When the show started, I had a crystal clear connection with everyone in the sound booth. In my ear mic I could hear all the stories of their weekend and what they needed to do to ready that day’s show. The only problem was that Steve’s voice was like listening to someone at the other side of a busy party. Cutting through the immediate noise was unnerving because, like listening to a conversation from your mother in law when the football is on, you think you can block out the immediate content and concentrate on the one that matters, but her tones are troublingly familiar and constantly tricked your brain into focussing on her banal ramblings about her unhelpful neighbours.

I decided to try and style the interview out by answering the questions I had been given earlier and hoping Steve had asked them, then trying desperately to filter out any follow up questions from the editing booth banter pouring into my ears in high definition. The result wasn’t pretty. Looking back on the video, one of the questions I guessed wrongly and then, when I started to suspect what I had done, I cocked my ear to the screen like a Victorian pensioner in need of an ear trumpet. The look in my eyes was less rabbit in a headlight and more rabbit in a bear trap with Farmer Palmer calmly cocking his shotgun nearby.

The show went out and, watching my segment through platted fingers, I knew they had needed to try and edit any salvageable content from me into something less like a televisual car crash. Exactly the last thing they needed on a day like that, with the Parker content still not ready. And like that, the phone and emails fell silent. All communication was now one way; from me to them. Bizarrely, a year later I received a seven page contract from Fox Sports to employ me as a commentator. As far as I know, a copy of it still sits in the safe at Suphanburi FC after I gave it to the President, thinking forlornly that this would propel me back into the Fox Sports central orbit.

Our Final Indecision by Matt Riley: 2014

Matt Riley's article on the Thai FA's Seemingly random sanctions, fines and appeal process, from October, 2014

Our Final Indecision

by Matt Riley

24th October, 2014

One of the few guarantees in Thai football is a headline-grabbing Thai FA edict that turns out to be as decisive as Mario Balotelli in an opposition penalty box. When reviewing the seemingly-swingeing sanction handed down after the shocking violence at the SCG Stadium last Saturday, a comment made to me last year by Muang Thong's GM Ronnarit Suewaja when discussing his club's relationship with the FAT leaps up and bites hard : "we are the FA." 

Both teams were fined three hundred thousand Baht ($10,000) and docked nine points. This essentially stops SCG Muang Thong from playing in the AFC for the first time in four years but, more decisively, all-but-relegates a previously comfortable mid table Singhtarua. To add to the intrigue, murderer (yes, you read that right: he was caught planting the bomb that killed his boss in 2009) and Siam Sport lapdog Thanom Borikut officiated Singhtarua's next game and, just like last year when his embarrassing penalty award sent then-known-as Thai Port down, he gave another laughable decision with the game scoreless to give away team BEC Tero the upper hand.

The other ingredient to add to the mix is the conduct of Police United. To the outside world, they seemed doomed to relegation for the last month, but they blithely carried on spending money like it was already out of fashion with their future secured. Extending the contract of "Coach Tak" Attaphol Buspakom and signing the highly-talented Japanese midfielder Sho Shimoji on exactly double his current club, AFC-bound BEC Tero, offered is not Titanic behaviour. Whilst hard to believe that anyone connected to the Thai police force could be involved in dodgy dealings, there are some starting to revise their opinion now that Singhtarua have suddenly been placed below them. 

So how will the appeal process horse trading unfold? The fines will hurt Singhtarua far more than money bags Muang Thong, so they are likely to stay solid. With the points deductions, the most likely scenario is a delayed appeal process to assess how many points Muang Thong need to scrape into the AFC or send Singtharua down: miraculously a figure could be arrived at to make both events happen. if Muang Thong are too far from qualifying, they will jettison the attempt and focus all their energies on getting Singhtarua out of their league. As an outsider, it seems strange why so much energy is being expended on destroying a mid table team and reflects the way Buriram United and SCG Muang Thong United have focussed all their machinating energies on hamstringing each other and allowed Chonburi to march past unnoticed.

Of course, this could be the iron-clad and final decision of a newly-determined FAT to shed the shackles of their paymasters at Siam Sport. For those betting on that, please also put your life savings on Aston Villa to win the English Premier League and I'll see you at the collection window.

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. 

Thailand - Where Trash Talking Comes As Standard by Matt Riley: 2014

Thailand: Where Trash Talking Comes As Standard

by Matt Riley

4th December, 2014

In English football, mumbled press conference platitudes bleat; "they are an excellent team so we need to play our best. We know how dangerous Hartlepool can be, so even though we are in the EPL we expect a really tough game." In Thailand, things are just a little different...

Over the years I have sat through dozens of Thai pre-match press conferences astonished at the words I hear. Like the laughable invitation to Uruguay for a friendly last month, Thai clubs will often announce invitations and signings as done deals before redacting history once the inbox falls silent. In the West, coaches would be pilloried post-match for their outlandish predictions and lack of respect to the opposition, but in Thailand the need to save face means crazy pre-match claims are not referred back to. Coaches will reveal formations, player injuries and  predictions for the final score. Seemingly paradoxically in the Kingdom where respect is seen as a key societal plank, coaches will often boldly state that they are the better team and a win is expected.

Notoriously last May in the Thai Premier League, the precursor to the SCG Muang Thong United match with Suphanburi saw the home side's official media bark out that their opposition was "not in our class." This proved to be correct, but they needed to look higher rather than lower in the class rank to find their opponents who romped to a 5:2 victory. In England this would have caused huge resentment and anger, but here it was only us expats who got hot under the collar. The "jai yen yen" approach of Thais where extremes of emotion are shied away from meant that, after a stadium-based party at the end of the game, a neutral onlooker watching Suphanburi fans file out of the SCG stadium would have been unsure who won and who just suffered their worst ever defeat.

What disorientates Westerners is that these statements aren't delivered like boxers desperately drumming up ticket sales with outlandish threats and promises of war but, like many seemingly contradictory aspects of living in Thailand, the comments are offered as statements before the fact.

The latest bold morsel of Thai-style trash talking comes from Head Coach Kiatisuk before Thailand's AFF Suzuki Cup semi-final on Saturday: "Their players are good technically and we cannot underestimate them. But many of them are slow and past their prime."

Even by the normal standards of breathtakingly directness, this is bold. Seemingly a quote to be pinned to the Philippine dressing room wall as inspiration or disrespectful to the highest-ranking FIFA team in ASEAN, today's Thai papers simply carried it neutrally and as a matter of obvious fact.

East or West, which is best? Snore-fest or startling honesty: give me an outrageously direct Thai pre-match where cards are not held close to the chest but scattered across the floor any day. 

Long live the madness.

Sleepwalking Into ASEAN by Matt Riley: 2014

Sleepwalking Into ASEAN

by Matt Riley

14th May, 2014

With less than eighteen months before the European Union of South East Asia (gulp) opens its doors, Thai football clubs continue to close theirs to this ten country, six hundred million strong, football crazy population.

Only two TPL clubs in SCG Muang Thong United and Suphanburi FC have officially sanctioned English mouthpieces. Whilst there is plenty of exceptional, unofficial work produced at a growing number of other clubs, it is the official messages that foreign future fans tend to gravitate towards. Insider content showing the below stairs machinations needs context, whilst the bland and glamorous advertorials help foreign fans choose a team, before digging deeper. 

Merchandising is a lost opportunity for both sites: SCG Muang Thong have an English catalogue, but purchasing is only in Thai and Suphanburi have yet to include one. Both sites provide high quality images of players performing to large crowds and content avoids nasty matters like official incompetence or political interference. By contrast, the official Thai FA is a telling tale of their attitude to English. None of it has been translated, but readers are teased by headings like "Follow @FAThailand on Twitter!" (Nothing in English and no Tweets for a month) or the Facebook link which, again, contains no English and is a mouthpiece for their friends at Siam Sport.

Bashing the Thai FA for their dismissive attitude to English is futile. Paralysed by Dark Politics, it offers a freedom for clubs to develop an ASEAN wide profile and new income streams. Unfortunately, Television is the delivery system and all deals must go through the FA. Look what happened last time...

In August 2012, Korean television company Daihan 21 filed a suit against the FAT alleging they paid over $1 million into the FA accounts for broadcasting rights they didn't receive. 

FAT Head Worawi counter sued and it all went away, but so did any interest in seeing Thai football exported to millions of ASEAN television screens. Just imagine how many Singhtarua fans would be spawned from images of their heaving stadium and crackling atmosphere, how many haircuts would be inspired by the Bangkok Glass midfield and trips by the ASEAN claustrophobic society to the terraces of TOT.

The weaknesses of neighbouring leagues are a strength for Thailand to exploit, but the time has passed. Fan support cannot be bolted on as a last minute afterthought; it has to be nurtured by a charm offensive of friendly matches, business agreements and player exchanges. With the mooted 3 foreigners, one Asian and one ASEAN foreigner in a lineup gathering momentum, it was also a chance to identify new talent on our doorstep at a fraction of the price of other foreigners.

So let's bury our heads in the sands and hope Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia ditch English and learn Thai. By then, the next Thai FA elections will be close and the best man for keeping those beastly non native people out of football can get his chance to topple Worawi Makudi. Ladies and gentlemen: Nigel Farage.

Don't Swear By It - Thai Officials Receive Unmerited Absolution by Matt Riley: 2014

Don't Swear By It: Thai Officials Receive Unmerited Absolution
by Matt Riley
30th July, 2014

High farce was robbed of its power yesterday when the Thai FA decided to force (on pain of a one year ban) over a hundred of its officials to swear before the Emerald Buddha that they would officiate with integrity. Farce became depressing reality when the referees were led to this auspicious location by Thanom "The Bomber" Borikut (pictured). This whistle for hire is now, after his promise to change the habits of a career, free to referee in the final third of the season. Chonburi and BEC Tero fans: be afraid; be very afraid. Supporters of both clubs need to plot the bomber as he uses two key strategies to reward his paymasters.

Although Buriram United are too powerful to nobble directly, he will work on ways to assist either rivals SCG Muang Thong United or officiate clubs about to play the champions to make sure they don't enter games against them weakened by suspensions or downcast through defeat. When given chance to officiate directly for The Sharks or Tero he will either plot to swing a close game against them or, if the margin is too wide, sanction one of their vital players to activate a suspension.  But, I hear you cry, what about the weekly referee raffles that prevent any of that type of shenanigans? To that, I invite you to watch the excellent 1994 film, Quiz Show.

Revered as an all-American example of  clean-cut aspiration, Herbert Stempel dominated the game show Twenty One but, after the initial support, viewers and sponsors grew tired of his dominant but increasingly unappealing personality. So they introduced Charles Van Doren, who had the twin advantages of an appealing personality and a notebook with all the answers in. When the roof caved in on their increasingly contrived sequences of dead heats as cliffhangers, the winner of over a million dollars in today's money could just as easily have been talking about the integrity of results in Thai football:

"It's silly and distressing to think that people don't have more faith in quiz shows."

Thailand has huge underground betting on football, referees are poorly paid and trained, club presidents wield enormous political power and millions of dollars rides on results. What could possibly go wrong? One month later van Doren was singing from a very different song book:

"I was involved, deeply involved in a deception."

Referee raffles are the misdirection that Twenty One used to fool the audience with ceremony and subterfuge. The game show had a respected host, the then-revered medium of television and an audience that, even when the story broke, at first refused to believe it. Here there is not even that veneer of pretence: the only question is how much light we dare shine on what is half hiding. The match officials' oaths must have turned to dust in their mouths.

“We have performed... and will perform our duty with honesty.’’

Thailand's Failure To Plan by Matt Riley: 2014

AFF Suzuki Cup Countdown: Thailand's Failure To Plan
by Matt Riley
11th November, 2014

In a refreshingly off-message comment for a man yet to sign his contract, Thai coach Kaitisuk "Zico" Senamuang bemoaned the lack of preparation by the Thai national team and highlighted how it contrasts to that of their upcoming opponents. He told English language newspaper The Nation yesterday:

"We have very little time to prepare. Actually we should have started preparations two years ago directly after the last edition."

He is, of course, absolutely right. But, on the same day, kickoff for Sunday's showpiece FA Cup final was moved forward without a thought for its consequences. Kicking of two hundred metres away from the Bangkok Glass and Chonburi showdown, the Thepasadin Stadium will host the Women's under 19 AFC qualifier against Myanmar. This was perfectly timed for FA Cup fans to come early, support the Thai women,  then make the two minute walk to the Supachalasai Stadium. But, in a tediously typical last minute change in isolation from other events, FA Cup final fans can only see the first half of the women's game and a few minutes of the second, creating a bizarre atmosphere for the women and a flat end to their game.

"Zico's" strident comments ring true when you survey the last two years for their opponents and their preparation. Since their heartbreaking overall defeat after a single goal victory at Sunday's FA Cup final venue, Thailand are now on their third coach after the departure of German Winnie Schaefer and the brief tenure of Thai Surachai Jaturapattarapong. Singapore lost their Serbian title-winning coach Radojko Avramovic and, apart from a single care-taking match by Singaporean  V Sundramoorthy, have had the stability and planning of German Bernd Stange. Malaysia come into the tournament with a similar situation after long-term boss K. Rajagopal left, Ong Kim Swee took over as interim coach and fellow Malaysian Dollah Salleh was appointed this year. Myanmar welcome their second coach since the last tournament and they will be delighted that it is Avramovic, who will look to improve on 2012's single point exit.

There is something profoundly depressing to hear the Thai national coach, in charge of some of the region's most talented players from one of its most high profile leagues, already preparing the ground for yet another tournament disappointment. Time and again Thai FA short, medium and long term planning spans the next twenty four hours whilst often weaker (but more organised) countries speed past on preparation merit alone. The second quote from Zico has the ring of an epitaph for his reign, even before he has put pen to paper on its introduction. I hope the Asian Games spirit can be rekindled and fire Thailand to success, but if it does it will be despite, not because, of those charged with planning their campaign.

"We haven't won this tournament for more than a decade. Our regional rivals, meanwhile, have been preparing for more than a year."
       

Football Means Business by Matt Riley: 2014

Football Means Business
by Matt Riley
4th September, 2014

For Bangkok-based clubs, football revenue is often seen as shirts, tickets and beer. Other  spending tends to be lumped in with the general hubbub of capital city spending. But, for provincial clubs, the increasing spending power of their teams generate new and life-changing opportunities for the local economy. Often living strictly budgeted lives, football's glamour helps leverage provincial families into parting with more money on a match day than they would during the week. These few hours of relative recklessness, if folded back into the local economy, make football a driver for improved local businesses.

Just this morning we have visited a sick member of staff in the local hospital. Of course he would rather not be there, but his bill paid by the club, the food bought for him at a local shop and a new set of device rechargers all add to the previously sleepy sales of the neighbouring shopping centre. As we go around the town we pay flower bills for a recent event, buy bedding from a local family firm for our new addition and settle the bill for a set of posters promoting a recent cycling event at our stadium. Each figure is relatively small, but for family-run businesses they represent a huge boost.

Match day often seems the be-all-and-end-all of revenue: merchandising and match tickets get the most attention. But we also invite local businesses to sell their food outside the stadium to our fans and guests. With the extra space a provincial club has, we can also combine concerts with match days that satisfy our sponsors and extends the chance to free fans from their funds. So many people concentrated in one place (our average home attendance tops ten thousand)  provides a huge bi-monthly boost for local businesses.  They often have to travel to their customers or fight for prime locations outside schools or strategic places on roads where eighty percent of the day is waiting for a busy twenty.

The next step for a club with enough foresight is to make their stadium a hub of local business. Creating office space for small local companies within their ground would develop daily income for tertiary services and keep the club front and centre of people's minds every day of the week. Plenty of Thai clubs, like Chiang Rai, have built in huge potential office space inside their grandstands but, like many others, these areas are destined to gather dust.  By building a stadium-based hotel like Chelsea, apartments a stone's throw from Arsenal's Emirates Stadium or the (failed) attempt by Newcastle United to build a casino (if it were legal here) behind the Gallowgate End clubs can reap rich rewards. Buriram's opening of a Formula 2 racing track and  Amari Hotel metres from the ground is the Thai benchmark, but with the amount of profile and profit available to a club and its community, there is a plenty more yet to do...

Thailand? You Bet by Matt Riley: 2014

Thailand? You Bet
by Matt Riley
18th May, 2014

May 2010 sticks in my mind for two reasons. The first was the astonishing result of Rene Desaeyere's Muang Thong United in their AFC Cup game against Qatar's Al Rayyan. Without enough squad players to fill the bench, The Kirrins pulled off a shock win on penalties with keeper Kawin Thamsachanan proving the decisive difference.

The second was the conversation with members of the opposition club afterwards. They told us that the Qatari FA had sewn up the votes for hosting the 2022 World Cup by fair means and foul and they would definitely get the nod. For me it sounded like false bravado from a losing team, but Rene was certain these people were serious men with serious wasta (influence.) So the next time I was in the UK I decided to pop into my local betting shop and find out the odds of such an unlikely occurrence. And that was when things started to get very interesting....

I could bet on any of the host cities for the 2022 games from favourites like the USA to outsiders Australia (who were, shockingly for this sports mad continent, to receive only one vote.) But there was one country who were not even quoted: Qatar. I went to all the high street bookies, checked online and then reviewed takers of unusual bets like Paddy Power, but none of them accepted wagers on Qatar. When I said to the man in the shop how surprised I was that one of the possible hosts couldn't be bet on, he felt it was because they were no hopers. Aston Villa get quoted odds to win the EPL at the start of each depressing season, so that didn't seem a plausible answer either.

During the summer of 2010, the only hint I saw that something was building came in a tiny footnote in a British tabloid's sports section. It quoted betting for Qatar as 25 to 1 but coming in all the time due to a "successful public relations campaign." Big wheels were turning. Encouraging FIFA words from high up were massaging momentum in the right direction and the previously unthinkable (and still unbetable) was confirmed in December of that year when Qatar were awarded the tournament.

In Qatar of course gambling is illegal. It is one of the few things they share with Thailand. But, whilst wealthy Qataris invade casinos like Malaysia's Genting Highlands, Thais adopt a similar approach to their road traffic laws. They are there, generally understood but routinely ignored. The hugely popular national lottery is not considered a form of gambling and Muay Thai bouts see wads of cash passed across crowds after mystic hand movements denote the odds and outcomes. Are we to believe that football is the only sport in this gambling mad country that is outside the influence of gamblers?

With websites like soccerway.com providing highly accurate data on five Thai leagues, this and other similar sites are very convenient conduits for betting. Whilst Thailand officially blocks IP addresses of gambling sites, where there is a wifi there is a way. English football wears its debt to betting on its shirts, but here the hidden power of a multi billion dollar industry sees it go unnoticed and unregulated. For a country located at the epicentre of match fixing and gambling dark practices, it seems naive to assume that it is untainted by the huge power of gambling syndicates.

Like the issue of spot fixing in cricket, players earning small amounts in the regional league are easy (and cheap) targets for match manipulation. This is also where keeping officials poorly trained and unsupported makes economic sense. Looking to manipulate a match presided over by an already inconsistent and poorly trained official is so much easier than with a confident and supported professional.

Now that Thai football is awash with money, it is alive with gambling possibilities. The lack of a credible FA to provide oversight, the huge demand for gambling from Thai men and the power of club owners to lift the carpet and apply the brush to any uncomfortable truths make it a highly attractive environment to manipulate. Gone are the days when results would be the sole outcome to bet on, and this has been a cheat's charter.

For red and yellow cards, awarding of a penalty or even corner, a well organised betting syndicate can manipulate events which previously seemed wholly arbitrary. The atomising of betting opportunities has also meant that each individual result within a game doesn't even need to bring a handsome return. The returns will accumulate in a way that spreads the risk and becomes hard to trace for lack of a one off, headline grabbing amount.

There are always whispers that Thai football is a vehicle for gambling syndicates with direct access to senior members of clubs. By ignoring it, the whispers only get louder. It is an issue that has to be openly addressed, ruthlessly clamped down on when evidence is discovered and players and staff consistently educated that they throw away their careers when they negotiate a match outcome. Like the Thai Highway Code, in the current climate, it would be an extremely useful document for levelling up uneven tables or swatting away annoying flies.

The Thai Art Of The Icy Heart: Jai Yen Yen by Matt Riley: 2014

The Thai Art Of The Icy Heart: Jai Yen Yen
by Matt Riley
9th October, 2014

So there I was last Sunday bent double over the team bus barrier staring into the football abyss. An FA Cup semi final defeat to Chonburi had consigned Suphanburi to seasons without a realistic chance of reaching the final.

All the stars had aligned this year to knock out Thai FA-controlling SCG Muang Thong United and the Kingdom's strongest club, Buriram United. Since the competition was relaunched in 2008, apart from its first season back, all semi finals had included one or both of the clubs, so a narrow defeat to the possible TPL champions with the inconsistent and mid-table Bangkok Glass waiting in the final was a jagged pill to swallow.

From the other side of the barrier, one of my colleagues looked surprised and embarrassed by my dejection. "Jai yen yen. Next year we win!" Jai yen yen means very cold heart; a surprising phrase for such generally warm-hearted people. But it wasn't only my colleagues who responded in this classically Thai fashion.

As I sat on the team bus waiting to go, the Chonburi and Suphanburi staff mingled happily (which was good to see) but the joy seemed evenly spread between both clubs. If I hadn't been to the match, deciphering which team was one match from an AFC adventure and whose season essentially had just ended would have been problematic.

As a foreigner, it's a strange call to make. Being in the middle of this scene, I started to feel oddly selfish for being so disappointed. It seemed like my response was inappropriate and too negative, wrong-footing me and showing just how disparately different hemispheres approach the same love of football. Part of the tranquility is to prevent losing face. Our President left the stadium as soon as the game had finished, so gusts of grief like professional mourners at Kim Jon il's funeral would have drawn too much attention to our collective failure.

From a Western point of view, we have to show how much losing hurts to ensure we do it as little as possible (unless we support Aston Villa). The Thai approach to failure is often denial (FAT Head Worawi Makudi's "shock" at Thailand's rank of one hundred and fifty eight being a laughable example) and it stunts the ability of the Thai game to improve.

From the five stages of grief, Thai football only signs up to the first, Crisis, and the third, Upheaval. They ignore stage two, Unity, rarely demonstrate an appetite for stage four, Resolution and only reluctantly address the final stage of Renewal if they are forced to by an outside agency. In Sir Chris Hoy's excellent BBC documentary, "How To Win Gold" he inadvertently highlighted how Thai football is losing half the battle: "Champions are made by endless hard work and determination, by victory and defeat."

If Thai football can learn from failure, it has a huge reservoir of case studies to call on.

Gentlemen: Insert Your Dummies by Matt Riley: 2014

Gentlemen: Insert Your Dummies
by Matt Riley
4th November, 2014

Buriram United are once again champions of the Thai Premier League. They won the title by two points over Chonburi. But, if you are a Siam Sports reader, that would be news to you. The Kingdom's biggest media syndicate decided that, in retaliation for Buriram United's Newin Chidchop telling their reporters they weren't welcome to come to his stadium or write about his club, they would carry on as if his club didn't exist. Whoever is right and whoever is wrong, everyone loses out.

When Buriram refused to accept the trophy after their title in 2011 it denied a regional promotional opportunity for the whole league of a successful team in a world class stadium advertising the health of Thai football. Instead, the trophy was hurriedly handed over in an airport lounge and both sides will have felt vindicated but neither had risen to the behaviour levels of a Kindergartener.

The power base of Thai football is now dangerously skewed with all-powerful Siam Sport bankrolling a team rapidly becoming also rans. This decline is being exacerbated by the increasing power of provincial clubs that won't bend a knee and have their own regional agendas they don't need help with. The team should be the delivery system for a media empire filling acres of magazine pages with stories of success and glamour. But, instead, they hover  on the fringes of success as Buriram United sweep forward with an increasingly-developed regional profile.

It has now been two long years since SCG Muang Thong have tasted the champions' champagne after previously strolling to annual titles at every league level.  But this won't be the end of the story for the mighty SS. Newly-promoted Nakhon Ratchasima have very close ties to Siam Sport and plans are in place to transfer the Muang Thong GM Ronnarit Suewaja and his sidekick to them so they can come at Buriram from a different angle.

They have finally woken up to the fact that their power base is narrowly confined within a deeply unpopular and marginalised FA whilst Buriram supremo Newin Chidchop has been making alliances with self-sustained clubs. This has given him enormous leverage which continues to grow with every brainless FA initiative and national team defeat (which he can help sustain by denying them his high calibre players).

But like mister Nero and his Roman fiddling, what the two groups of toddlers fail to notice is that they are undermining confidence in the product that has given them so much power and profile. Thai football may be underwritten by politicians' money, but the increased input of international sponsors requires adherence  to global standards of conduct or, like Emirates' plug-pulling of FIFA after the latest corruption allegations, the product becomes poisonous for everyone.

Spitting your dummy out doesn't make you the winner: it only makes you more angry, frustrates everyone around you and repels everyone who is forced to observe it.

End Of Empire - Siam Sports' Loosening Grip Around Thai Football's Throat by Matt Riley: 2014

End Of Empire: Siam Sports' Loosening Grip Around Thai Football's Throat
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.