It’s been said for some time in football circles that “the future is Asia”. Indeed the Asian Football Confederation has made it their official motto. But it should be reworded. The farce is Asia.
First there was the downfall of AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam, a man who refuses to leave his post while he fights bribery findings by FIFA’s ethics committee. Then came allegations in the Sri Lankan press by journalists Tiran Kumara Bangamaarachchi and Vijitha Fernando that Bin Hammam’s AFC and FIFA executive committee colleague Vernon Manilal Fernando had misused FIFA funds. And then there is perhaps the most disturbing tale of all: that of Worawi Makudi, another AFC and FIFA heavy who is throwing his weight around in the Thai courts, trying to silence criticism of him in the media.
I’ve written about Worawi before, on this website in July, and my story became headline news in Thailand. I reported allegations made in the Thai newspaper Hot Score that Worawi had illegally resold tickets he had obtained at no cost from FIFA for profit. Pictures of the tickets were emailed to me from a whistleblower inside Thailand. Banner headlines from Bangkok featured photos of your columnist and Worawi. Thai internet forums were abuzz.
As was explained to me before the Thailand vs Australia World Cup qualifier in Brisbane by sources inside Thailand fighting for greater transparency in the Asian game, no one could quite believe that someone outside the country had had the temerity to challenge Worawi, an individual whose personal wealth my confidential source put at US$30 million. No one in Thailand was doing that; they were too afraid, even journalists at the country’s biggest newspapers. Except, that is, the brave people at Hot Score, against whom Worawi’s Thailand Football Association was now filing a massive damages claim.
The lawsuit had its first session before a judge on 27 August and although it was supposed to be public was in fact held in a closed court and records of what transpired have not been made available. It gets heard again on 24 September.
FIFA has said nothing about the tickets affair and don’t hold your breath. Another high-profile expulsion from its executive committee is the last thing it wants. And Worawi, who also holds the exalted position of chairman of the Committee for Women’s Football and the FIFA Women’s World Cup, has proved remarkably durable despite all the accusations that have been levelled at him. He has been on the ex-co 14 years.
But in my view the Thai FA president who also doubles as a special advisor to new Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has more explaining to do. This time over his ownership of the very land the Thai FA’s National Football Training Centre sits on in Nong Chok, a suburb 40 kilometres outside of Bangkok. A rural farming area. In the boondocks.
I’ve actually seen the title deed documents. Worawi’s name is on them. He owns plot 18, on which the main part of the NFTC stands, plus surrounding parcels. He has famously claimed to have signed his ownership of the land over to the Thai FA but the documents do not show that. It shows he still has a mortgage of 14 million baht on his real-estate purchases in Nong Chok. He has owned the land since April 1988. (I should also point out here that Jean François Tanda at Handelszeitung in Switzerland has been separately contacted by and provided with information from the same whistleblower.)
The NFTC has been the recipient of FIFA grants, in 2003 and 2007, totalling close to a million dollars. Worawi himself has said of the development: “[It] will be the centre for creating national teams… our weapon for the future. The five-storey training centre will have 120 rooms, one swimming pool, five training grounds and a fitness centre.”
So who, exactly, is likely to gain from all this investment? Future generations of Thai football or Worawi’s nest egg? And doesn’t this constitute a direct violation of FIFA’s Code of Ethics?
“While performing their duties, officials shall avoid any situation that could lead to conflicts of interest,” it warns. “Conflicts of interest arise if officials have, or appear to have, private or personal interests that detract from their ability to perform their duties as officials with integrity in an independent and purposeful manner. Private or personal interests include gaining any possible advantage for himself, his family, relatives, friends and acquaintances.”
Mr Blatter? Mr Valcke? Anybody awake at FIFA?
But it gets murkier. What of the plans of Qatar’s Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence to build a satellite academy in Thailand?
The Thai FA isn’t saying where precisely it will be built and Worawi has denied knowing anything about it even though it’s commonly understood he voted for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup and bid documents from 2009 said the Middle Eastern emirate was looking to “build a football academy in Thailand”.
Could it end up on this same Worawi land in Nong Chok? Or perhaps land owned by his good friend, the Thai football powerbroker and sports tycoon Ravi Lohthong?
Lohthong owns Muang Thong United, the top team in the Thai Premier League, and has promised to build an academy on land adjoining the club’s stadium in Muang Thong Thani, north of Bangkok. Worawi himself owns nearly 50 per cent of the Thai Premier League Co Ltd and maintains the exclusive right to run the TPL in conjunction with Ravi’s Siam Sports Syndicate. SSS effectively controls the purse strings to the TPL. It is also believed to have strong links to Aspire, having been involved in sending a multitude of young players from Thailand for tuition in Doha. A convenient arrangement.
Cynical questions, perhaps, but cynicism is understandable when a country’s premier football training facility is built on land owned by the president of the country’s football association.
In Thailand, anything goes. But at FIFA, different rules apply and its privileged servants should be held accountable to them.