Thailand to investigate Thaksin’s bid for Manchester City

With 9 points into the new Premiership season, Manchester City is flying high. However, the wings could be clipped by a move that has been conceived miles away in Asia. It has now been confirmed by the junta-installed Asset Examination Committee that Thailand will investigate the purchase of the Premier League club by former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra to check whether the money used in the transaction was clean or not. Ever since Shinawatra bought the English club this summer, there has been a huge cloud hovering dangerously over both the owner and club. Shinawatra was overthrown in September last year by a military junta known as the Council for National Security (CNS) in a bloodless coup while he was attending a UN meeting in New York after allegations of corruption, dictatorship, demagogy, treason, conflicts of interest, acting undiplomatically, tax evasion, use of legal loopholes, hostility towards free press, selling domestic assets to international investors, and religious desecration had reached boiling point. Shinawatra escaped to England in exile and made his bid to buy Manchester City in the summer. He paid $43.7 million for the football club, offering 40 pence per share in cash and agreeing to assume a debt of $120 million even after more than $2 billion of his assets were frozen by the committee. But that wasn’t the end of the matter. His takeover of the club has come under much scrutiny and criticism in England and recently the Thai government, now run by the military junta that removed him from power, issued an arrest warrant against him and his family. And the committee now plans to probe into his assets once more and check whether the money that he used to buy Man City was indeed clean or not. Kaewsan Atibodhi, the committee’s secretary, told reporters: It’s our responsibility to find out where the money comes from. This may need cooperation. Although this is one more reason for all those connected to Manchester City to feel apprehensive, Thaksin’s lawyer, Noppadol Pattama reassures that the money so spent was clean and that the club would in no way be made a sufferer amidst all the controversy and legal fight surrounding the former Thai minister at the moment. Yet it is hard to take his words at face value. Several independent bodies, including Amnesty International, were harsh critics of Shinawatra when he was in power in Thailand; Human Rights Watch even described Thaksin as “a human rights abuser of the worst kind’. Many observe his takeover of Manchester City as an escape route from the difficult times at home and believe that his investment in the club is just one way to clean up his black money. Image Source: National Multimedia Source: Bloomberg