Thaksin approaches Scolari.....or has he?

Thaksin Shinawatra has offered Luiz Felipe Scolari £3.25m a year to manage Manchester City and, in a move which has echoes of the Football Association's approach to the Brazilian ahead of the 2006 World Cup, he wants an answer before Scolari leads Portugal into the European Championship next month.

The approach to Scolari came, via a Brazilian agent, from Srisumrid Jack Taweesuk, City's executive director, whose attempts to lure the Portugal national manager are understood to have included a promise that money will be available to Scolari to buy "the players that he wants".

>>independent.co.uk

The Times claimed that Scolari had been offered £3.2 million per season to become the new boss, but had been gven a deadline to accept prior to the European Championships - a logical expectation given the way the summer tournaments obstruct off season planning, but it may also be that Thaksin could be thwarted as The Guardian reports that Scolari is in no rush to make a decision.

To confuse matters even further, there were also denials that Scolari had even been contacted, yet there seems to be enough out there to lend suggetion to the claims and BBC Sport also led with this story this afternoon, but early evening changed tack with this report that Thaksin has yet to make a decision regarding Sven's future, quoting him as saying "We have made no decision. We will do an evaluation at the end of the season."

Now, given that Thaksin himself had yet to comment regarding the stories circulating regarding Sven's sacking, could there be some truth in the quote attributed to him and that there really has been no decision until the post-season review.

Whilst the past weeks events has proved most things are possible, far too much has gone on to simply suggest that reports of Sven being sacked have been merely trumped up by an over zealous media, but whilst we still wait in limbo for confirmation one way or the other it does give provide an avenue for Thaksin to get a way out of this and save face.

Unlikely though, as despite being very much a populist politician, he is also a hard nosed and hard edged businesman and seemingly unlikely to let anything stand in his way.

I would suggest that the situation is more to do with keeping Sven hanging on as a fall back whilst he attempts to snare his more desired option.