Sunday, June 24, 2007

Claim and counter-claim

In what is likely to be an all-too familiar episode over the coming months, the club found itself dragged into the Shinawatra affair as it was announced that there was to be an investigation into the origin of the funds used to finance the bid for the club.

After recently having a vast chunk of his assets frozen by the current Thai regime, they are seemingly none too happy at him having managed to be able to lodge his bid for the club, with Chalongphob Sussangkarn, Thailand's finance minister saying:

"This money which would be used for Manchester City is still
a mystery to Thailand, so I cannot tell where the money will be coming from," he
said."I am sure the asset examination commission will look at the source of
these funds and try to see whether they are legal funds that were taken out or
by other means."If the deal goes ahead and the money is paid they will try to
look at it."We don't know yet how he is going to finance it. We won't know until
the deal is finalised."


This was something which was refuted by Keith Harris, who is confident that the monies used to purchase the club is all above board, saying:

"The money to buy Man City is clean. It has been
legitimately and transparently transferred to the UK."

"A number of his bank accounts have been frozen. Some
of them are personal and some corporate," said Harris.
"But the money used to
finance the takeover and used to invest in the club are in bank accounts in
England and beyond their (the Thai government's) reach".


As I have mentioned previously, one of the dangers attached to the Shinawatra takeover is this very scenario, where his political opponents try to make gain by continually investigating his activities.

This may well just be political manouevering onbehalf of the Thai government, an attempt to put a dampener on some of the publicity generated by his takeover, but still, it doesn't reflect too well on the club and merely provides further ammunition to those in the media who seemingly have an appetite to continually target and criticise the club.

vote it up!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been worrying about this for a while now, but my main worry is sven.

I read an article in the daily mail saying how bad 'Sinatra' is going to be. How back in Thailand he's also being investigated regarding a breech of human rights. How he has killed so many people and turned a blind eye to the police brutality taking place. But at the same time i was reading articles from thai newspapers and apparently he was well loved by the people, he subsidised health care and universities. At the end of the day he was elected into power for the longest time in thailands history. He was over thrown be a military coup, who of course were not voted in.

Now here's a man who was popular and has an imense fortune massing £2 billion, topled by the military. Of course there is going to be political mud slinging. His fortune was made before he got to power, although it's fair to say he probably made a lot more during this time, a few land deals are being called into question. Something similiar to the Cherie Blair saga, but we don't hear about that one now.

If the man has £160 million and wants to buy the club and players he has my vote. From hearing him speak he sounds like a very good business man and the money mentioned is going sounding great. and I'm going to give sven a chance aswell. He will attract players. Fabio Cannavarro(in my opinion one of the best players in the world for quiet a while)has came out in defence of how good a coach he is, for no apparent reason i might add. And not from england it has to be pointed out that the england players always stood buy him and didnt criticise him. He has one league and cup doubles in 3 different countries, a first. Plus he is englands 3rd best manager of all time, not sure who 1 and 2 are.

At the end of the day the money is in banks in england and cannot be looked at until after the deal is done. So the club is his as far as I'm concerend. So let 'Sinatra' as he wants to be called start singing the blues......

Anonymous said...

Claim & Counter Claim. There certainly is, but we aren't getting a balanced view of the situation. I posted the following link on the MEN site, following a particularly doom-laden article of theirs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005-2006_Thai_political_crisis

Wikipedia gives what appears to be a fairly balanced account of what happened (pretty long, and hard to follow from such a distance). My idea was to let people read the articles and make up their own mind. Strangely enough, it got lost in the MENs editorial filter system. So when it comes to claim and counter-claim, I would say that if all you have read are British press reports, or those put out by the current Military Junta censored Thai press, then you don't have the facts available to make up your minds.

Personally, I'll go with the British Government, who don't recognise the current unelected Thai government.

Anonymous said...

For me the isssue isn't the legality or otherwise of his money. I would imagine most people who have personal wealth of £2 billion have made the odd 'mistake' on their tax return over the years, and money illegaly earned can always be taken back.

I become less comfortable, and corrections become harder, when the issue is the lives a person is responsible for. Like the 2000 people who died during a government sponsored anti drugs campaign under Thaksin's watch. Like the million workers denied basic employment rights. Like thehuman-rights lawyers who 'dissappeared'

If you want a balanced account of what something run by Mr Shinawatra is like, read what Amnesty International thought in 2005.

http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/tha-summary-eng

Note that I'm not defending the current Thai regime, mereley pointing out the reasons I am hoping Mr Shinawatra is declared unfit and unproper by the EPL.

Simon-Peter Vickers-Buckley said...

Amnesty International? Balanced? You cannot be serious.

The charges against the man are either true or not.

Wait.

Frankly I'm just upset his 2billion has been frozen.

I hope pressure will be placed on the Military to release it so we can buy some players, lots and lots and lots and reduce tickets prices, or buy United before selling the ground off to Tesco nice and cheap.

Anonymous said...

3000 - thought it was 2500 dead drug peddlers? As someone posted on another site, he should therefore be awarded the Nobel prize. No mention of his crackdown on paedophilia Nick? Take it you're in favour then. If you had kids you wouldn't be.

All the Thai people I've spoken to (who aren't big business, and aren't connected with the military junta) are just waiting for the day he comes back and wins the next election, so he can start looking after them again. Meanwhile - lets hope he'll look after us.