Friday, May 25, 2007

Shinawatra takeover 'going smoothly'

From reutuers:

Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra hopes to
complete a takeover of English Premier League soccer club Manchester City in
early June, his spokesman said on Friday.
"Everything is going smoothly,"
Thaksin's lawyer Noppadon Pattama told Reuters. "We hope the deal will be
formally concluded by early June."
Thaksin, who has not returned to Thailand
since being ousted in a bloodless coup in September, made an indicative proposal
to Manchester City earlier this month but no further details have been released
since.
But Noppadon said a formal tender had been made and the deal could be
wrapped up as early as June 2.
But he still declined to confirm the size of
the takeover, which a leading Thai newspaper put at 100 million pounds.


There has been plenty of concern about the length of time the deal is taking, leading to some speculation that the proposed deal may have even fallen through. A difficulty is that there is little in the way that the club can be publicly comment on whilst any takeover is in process - which invariably leads to speculation and rumour.

Early June was always the likely timescale that a Shinawatra deal and if the words from his lawyer are to be taken at face value then it seems the deal is on course to be completed.

vote it up!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is worrying - I was hoping with it all going quiet that the rumours that he was unlikely to spend his own money were true. Remember that the deal to buy Liverpool was going to be funded with a state lottery in Thailand.

What are your views on his human rights record?

Anonymous said...

Not a worry for me.

He had a war with drug dealers and a lot of the people killed were killed via infighting between drug dealers.

He is certainly not squeaky clean and neither is Roman Abramovich or the fellah that took over Portsmouth.

However he is still very popular with a large number of Thais. A lot of the accusations are coming from the Military. Thanksin was voted for Democratically. The Military took over with a coup. The military are also renowned for corruption.

I think he will be good for our club, and yes I hope I dont live to regret his takeover but there is risk with any takeover, at least he has some dosh.

Onwards and upwards blues

CTID

Anonymous said...

Shinawatra can't be compared to any other football club owner in this country. I will be ashamed to have anything to do with the club if he takes over, and I didn't think anything would ever make me think that way about City, because it isn't just the club I support it's a part of my family history. If he takes over I won't be going to games, I won't be buying replica shirts, I won't be handing over any of my money to him.

Anonymous said...

It may well be true that a lot of people were killed by infighting, but a lot of people were executed by Thaksin's government without trial.

I would rather a club with no money than a club with dirty money. No one here is defending Abramovich or any other owners. We just don't want City to be owned by someone with as dodgy a past as him.

It looks like the rumours that I read about as soon as the bit was mooted - that he would never spend his money and that it was all for the publicity - are proving to me mercifully true. It is just a shame that the board were so seduced by the money they couldn't see beyond it.