POLITICS-THAILAND: Lottery Tickets to Finance Liverpool Purchase

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jun 1 2004 (IPS) - After having been a symbol of thrift and sound management for years, the Government Savings Bank is about to throw financial prudence out of the window to help finance Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s stake in Liverpool – a major British soccer club.

And the bank plans to do this, in a seemingly strange way, by selling lottery tickets.

This plunge into the world of gambling by an old and respectable financial institution is just one piece in an intricate plan that Thaksin has conceived for Thailand to own a slice of the premier British club.

Under this plan, the savings bank’s branches will be the major outlets for the Thai public to buy lottery tickets worth 1,000 baht (25 U.S. dollars) each as part of the government’s attempt to raise the required 115 million U.S. dollars needed to earn a 30 percent stake of Liverpool.

Bangkok has already announced that 10 million tickets would be sold in this country of 63 million people.

And the government is dangling a very tempting carrot to encourage that the public swoons over this deal – prize money running into the millions of baht, with the first prize being an unprecedented one billion baht (25 million U.S. dollars).

The odds appear to be in favour of the government, given how addicted Thais are to gambling. According to the National Economics and Social Development Board (NESDB), a think tank, in 2001 alone there were over four million Thais who participated in the underground world of gambling.

Close to three million Thais did so in neighbouring countries where gambling is legal.

In addition, the government-run lotteries are a popular draw across the country.

Yet the Thaksin administration’s bid for football glory is being shot down by a growing chorus of academics, grassroots activists and social critics.

They are troubled by the mixed messages that have emerged over the prime minister’s plan to establish a Thai link with a popular club in Britain’s premier soccer league.

”It is an absurd idea that will encourage more gambling,” Somboon Sirirachai, an economist at Bangkok’s Thammasat University, told IPS.

”This deal does not make any economic sense for the country,” he added.

Others have written open letters to the Thai public echoing similar sentiments.

”We disagree with the plan to use the Government Savings Bank as the distribution centre to sell the lottery tickets,” declared Paiboon Wattanasiritham, a member of the National Economic and Social Advisory Council, an independent think tank, in one widely distributed letter.

Academics from some law faculties, on the other hand, have launched a public campaign to drive home another message claiming that the deal being spun by the Thaksin administration has elements that violate the country’s 1997 constitution.

But the prime minister appears unfazed with the volley of criticism, saying over the weekend that his administration was determined to do it ”the right way.”

”You only have to trust me, because I have been working (as prime minister) for more than three years and our country has improved a lot,” he was quoted as having told Saturday’s ‘The Nation’ newspaper.

However, his arguments to win support for the Liverpool deal have revealed new, and surprising elements, since it was first divulged to the public in early May.

At the outset, it appeared like Thaksin, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon, was planning to buy the 30 percent stake in the British soccer club in a partnership with a few other leading Thai businessmen.

Yet as the days passed, the spin that the government had put out to attract the support of the country’s soccer-obsessed public changed. The deal was no more a private financial initiative between a few wealthy Thais and a British team.

Rather, the Thaksin administration talked up plans of creating a novel business venture in the country – a public company under the management of the Sports and Tourism Ministry to be in charge of this investment. The funds would come largely through the sale of lottery tickets.

This mix of the public and private sector has also been reflected elsewhere.

The initial discussions between Liverpool’s chief executive and Thaksin took place in the prime minister’s office and the Thai negotiating team in Britain had included the country’s deputy minister of commerce and the chief executive of Thaksin’s telecommunication company, Shin Corp.

Ironically, Bangkok sees this investment of millions of dollars from a developing country to a developed one differently.

The government has said the stake in the soccer club would help the country get more international exposure and at the same time be able to sell more of its products using the global recognition that Liverpool enjoys.

Furthermore, the prime minister has assured the country that this deal would help lift the quality of the game in the country, because part of the agreement includes the possible setting up of a Liverpool-run soccer academy.

”The academy will certainly be good for Thai football,” Wanchai Rujawongsanti, football columnist for the ‘Bangkok Post’ newspaper told IPS. ”We do not have a formal training centre for the local players.”

Such drawbacks, including a weak domestic football league, have not stopped Thailand from attaining impressive heights in South-east Asia. It currently has the best national team in the region.

But even Wanchai is uncomfortable with the Thaksin administration’s plans of seeking football glory through a measure that would bind the Thai state and its public to the fluctuating fortunes of a British soccer club for years.

”What is worse,” adds Somboon, the economist, ”is that the government has not disclosed all the information about this deal. There is so much about the inside workings of Liverpool that the Thai public does not know.”