By James Goyder
Football Association of Thailand (FAT) president Worawi Makudi is clinging to power by his fingertips after the controversial postponement of a recent leadership election.
Fans first began to voice their dissatisfaction with Makudi last December, holding him responsible for a desperately poor run of results by the national team. While normally it is the manager or head coach of a football team who bears the brunt of the supporters’ frustrations over perceived failures, it was Makudi, rather than Bryan Robson whose resignation was called for after Thailand failed to progress beyond the group stages of the AFF Suzuki Cup.
The major point of contention was that the Thai League Cup, a competition which involves teams playing each other both home and away, was started at a late stage in the season leading to serious fixture congestion and, consequentially, exhaustion for many of the top Thai players.
The protesters were led by Pinit Ngam-pring, leader of the Cheer Thai Power group, and Pipat Varamethpipat, leader of Muang Thong United supporters.
Worawi Makudi and Bryan Robson. Pic: AP.
Pinit felt that Thai football was not moving in the right direction. “As Thais, we want to see Thai football move forward and not backward,” he said.
While Pipat accused Makudi of having his head in the clouds. “We want a football boss with a vision and not one who only daydreams about Thailand qualifying for the World Cup,” he said.
Makudi is an ambitious individual who announced in April that he was hoping to stand for the position of president of the Asian Football Federation (AFF). He is also a FIFA executive member and as such got to cast one of the coveted votes for the hosting of the 2018 World Cup earlier this year.
It is not clear exactly whether Makudi’s role at FIFA is dependent upon him remaining FAT president, but losing the election, which was originally scheduled for Friday May 6, would clearly have cast a significant spanner in the works of his current career plans.
The election was expected to be closely contested between Makudi and popular former national team manager Virach Chanpanich who decided to throw his hat in the ring at the last minute. Days before the ballots were due to be cast, Thailand were disqualified from qualifiers for the Olympic Games after fielding an ineligible player in the tie with Palestine. For many, this represented the final nail in Makudi’s coffin.
May 6 came and no election results were forthcoming with initial reports suggesting that it had been postponed under circumstances which were decidedly vague
The Bangkok Post offered one possible interpretation of the postponement:
‘The FAT claimed it postponed the election because many member clubs had more than one representative while some voters did not have proper ID cards. However, it was speculated that the postponement might have been prompted by incumbent FAT president Worawi Makudi facing a possible defeat in the poll.’
The Sports Authority of Thailand then decided to step in and in the words of the Bangkok Post,
‘added salt to Worawi Makudi’s wounds (by) saying he is no longer Football Association of Thailand president and that the postponement of last Friday’s election was illegal.’
In order to be lawful the postponement should have been approved by two thirds of the eligible voters but this procedure never occurred and SAT representatives claim that Makudi refused to allow them to check whether the registered voters had the proper papers or not. The SAT also stated that as Makudi’s term had expired he was no longer president of the FAT and did not have the authority to call an election, let alone call one off.
Things went from bad to worse for Makudi in the aftermath of the election when former English Football Association chairman David Triesman accused him of asking to be awarded the TV rights to a friendly between Thailand and England in exchange for his vote for England’s 2018 World Cup bid.
It is a charge which Makudi vehemently denies but the timing is extremely unfortunate as he is presumably on the campaign trail trying to gain the necessary support to win the rescheduled election. The Associated Press put out an article which bore a title declaring,
‘FIFA’s Worawi out as Thai FA president’
However upon closer inspection readers would have discovered that Makudi was only ‘out’ in that the SAT had declared that his term had expired. There is nothing to stop him from standing as a candidate for re-election.
It would be easy to write Makudi off given the wealth of negative publicity which he has generated in recent weeks but it was also be a mistake. You don’t get to become such a powerful figure in the world of football without being an astute political operator and the postponement of the election gives him a vital few weeks in which to woo voters.
Thailand harbours ambitions to host a World Cup and 2026 or 2030 have been identified as potential dates, but the slightest suggestion of institutional corruption could be enough to sink any potential bid. The FAT has been making worldwide headlines for all the wrong reasons and whatever the outcome of the eventual election the reputation of Thai football has suffered a serious blow.
