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City takeover | City takeover |
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Upon taking control of Manchester City, billionaire businessman and ex-Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra, clearly having been made aware that nothing wins the British over like a self-deprecating sense of humour, said that he didn’t mind that people had trouble pronouncing his surname and was happy to be referred to as “Sinatra”. It remains to be seen whether it will enjoy the same popularity as the nickname he’s commonly known by in his own country: Ai Na Liam, or Mr Square Face. This might seem harmless enough, but it wasn’t coined purely to poke fun at his rather Cubist features. There’s also a secondary sting that should worry all City fans: the Thai word for square-shaped also means “con man”. The military government that peaceably ousted Shinawatra in September 2006 has accused him of, among other things, major corruption, selling off national assets for personal gain, curtailing the freedom of the press and using the cover of a war on drugs to suppress elements of the population. This isn’t quite like hearing that your club has been bought by a consortium of Serb ethnic cleansers fronted by Jonathan King, but the openly made charges still dwarf the urban myths and innuendo that follow the Premier League’s other foreign tycoons. And yet, no one has taken to the streets in protest. In fact, nothing much has been done to stop Shinawatra. The takeover was almost a fait accompli anyway, as he’d quietly entered into an Irrevocable Undertaking Agreement with John Wardle, David Makin, Francis Lee, Dennis Tueart and several other major shareholders happy to do business (essentially a promise to sell him their stakes for an agreed price). This meant that by the time news of the planned buyout became public he effectively owned 55.94 per cent of the club already. Another bloodless coup, and one that the Premier League’s “fit and proper person” test looks powerless to derail. From WSC 247 September 2007 On the subject...
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