Sports : Political football,business football

Political football, business football

Chang Noi’s article in The Nation on June 07, 2004

The deal is dying. It remains only to find a face-saving exit. But what did it tell us?

The idea of buying a stake in a famous football club probably always had two kinds of appeal for Thaksin. The first appeal was the straight business opportunity. Back in 2002, the Shin Corp chairman, Boonklee Plangsiri, said the group was looking for international investment opportunities in the entertainment field to use up some of the enormous amounts of money the company is making. Shin Corp’s annual profit is now about the same as the total annual income of the population of a moderate-sized Thai provincial town.

The second appeal for Thaksin there was the political attraction of being associated with a popular and glamorous activity. International football, especially the English league, is now up there with Hollywood as an international focus of popular enthusiasm. In Thailand, beer brands, whisky brands, cinema chains, soft drinks, clothing brands and many others have paid money to associate themselves with football for marketing advantage. For a political brand, the attraction is the same.

But here was the dilemma. To get the commercial benefit of the deal, Thaksin could not be personally involved as it was unconstitutional, clearly in conflict with Clause 209 of the 1997 charter. It would have to be a Shin project or a Pojaman project. But to get the political benefit, Thaksin would have to play the leading role. Hence in all the early build-up, he was proudly talking about the deal using the first person pronoun. It was I, Thaksin about to buy Liverpool. Very clearly.

As a result, we were treated to a delirious moment on BBC radio on 11 May. Thaksin announced he was on the verge of clinching the deal to buy Liverpool. Seconds later, the government spokesman, Jakrapob Penkair, said that “Thailand as a country” was buying the team. Had “Thaksin” and “the people of Thailand” fused into a single thing?

Speaking to the press a day earlier, Thaksin had said: “whether to buy it [Liverpool] personally, or invite a consortium, or use government money—this has yet to be decided…. I’m thinking of using it as the country’s brand, to help the poor.” In one thought, he could slide from a personal investment to poverty relief. Had these two things now fused into a single thing too? In his mind, it seemed indeed to be so.

We were invited to believe that just adding Liverpool branding to OTOP products like Yasothon rice crackers, Chaiya salted eggs, or Chaiyaphum baskets would boost their sales around the world. We were told that Thai kids would be inspired to throw away their speed pills, become as soccer-mad as their Brazilian peers, and go on to earn outrageous fortunes as international soccer stars. We were tempted to think that just by owning a piece of such a powerful international marketing property, Thailand would be able to charge more for everything. As economic development theory, this was truly visionary.

Running a country like running a company is actually rather complex, because politics becomes commercial, and commerce becomes political.

Thaksin wants to treat the country—either in the form or the government, or as “the people of Thailand”—rather like an international holding company, or perhaps even a hedge fund, which seeks revenue by buying, selling, and exploiting capital assets available in the international marketplace. All governments do something like this when they put their spare cash in bonds, or own state enterprises. Thaksin is merely saying that Thailand company/country should be more truly business-like and aggressive about this sort of thing. Why stop at one football club? Why not several? Why limit yourself to football clubs? Why not copper mines, international retail chains, soft drink brands? Why not buy Britney Spears?

But in reality, politics and business are still a bit different. The executives of Thailand company/country have to do more than just deliver a profit. Every four years, there is a special kind of shareholders meeting called a general election. The shareholders are of course interested in the bottom line. But they are rather different from the shareholders of normal companies (the ones that are not countries). Their votes can be swayed by factors other than the dividend payout— by social reasons, ethical concerns, ideological convictions, or human aspirations. They can also be fairly irrational, emotional, and driven by imagery.

Hence the Liverpool deal was never purely commercial, but always had an element of politics, of political theatre. The rationalizations about OTOP branding and inspired youngsters were always nonsense. The reason why Thailand company/country was buying a football team not a copper mine or a retail chain (which would probably be better investments) was the expected political benefit for Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai from the glamour value of football.

Like nothing before, the Liverpool deal exposed the essential confusion between business and politics, Thailand and Thaksin, Shin Corp and Thailand Inc, the taokae and the premier, political power and commercial benefit, populism and capitalism, country and company. Thus, in those few magic radio moments, both Thaksin and “the people of Thailand” were buying Liverpool because somehow they were the same thing.

As the deal began to fall apart, Thaksin sighed that the Thai people were not yet advanced enough to understand and embrace his vision. Perhaps, actually, they understood it all too well