Just met Thaksin

[The Doctor]

If it was not for the good Dr. we would not be where we are today

Did your son not even have a stick or something?




I joke, I know what he did for us.

You've just about redeemed yourself with that last line............but only just!

 

[halfcenturyup]

Why are you 'thanking' this bellend?

No previous owner of the club has ever had less regard for the club, the fans and what it means to people.

No previous owner has ever driven the club as close to the edge of complete ruin.

No previous owner has ever been so self interested and had no regard whatsoever for the good of the club, compared to his own personal aims.

No-one previously associated with the club has ever put political aims first second and third in every decision he made at the club and used the club as nothing more than a political tool, let alone a political tool for an audience on the other side of the world.

The man was a leech. He fucked the club and is one of the luckiest people around that decent and honourable people happened to offering a way out at the time he had totally fucked us up.

Not to mention the ridiculous human rights and corruption issues that he brought to this club which have no place at any self respecting football club.

He got lucky with the sale, through no fault of his own - if anyone thinks that the current owners are so incompetent that they would only purchase the club from some dodgy twat who had 'a name that was known' and would have not bought from anyone else selling a fine club stuffed with potential but on the brink of ruin, they are doing the current owners a massive diservice and painting them as amateurs who only buy from snivelling toads thet have some association with, rather than the seriousbusinessmen that they are.

He was and is a twat, with no respect whatsoever for this club.

He would have seen this club go to the wall and not blinked once, apart from worrying that he might look a bit silly in front of his supporters in Thailand.

Thanking him for being in the right place at the right time is like thanking Shipman for having some cough medicine in his bag that fixed your sore throat whilst he was doing his rounds and trying to 'treat' your grandma.

This.......

This a second time.....

and, just to be sure, this once more for good luck.

 

[halfcenturyup]

If it was not for the good Dr. we would not be where we are today

Exactly, and I was not to going to say something bad infront of his cute daughter!

Are you sure it was his daughter and not his "second wife"? She is supposed to be 18 (19 now probably) .....

 

[moomba]

He left us in a much better place than he were in when we took over.

Whether that was down to pure luck, or not I don't really care.

 

[The Doctor]

He left us in a much better place than he were in when we took over.

Whether that was down to pure luck, or not I don't really care.

EXACTLY!!

 

[Blue2112]

Why are you 'thanking' this bellend?

No previous owner of the club has ever had less regard for the club, the fans and what it means to people.

No previous owner has ever driven the club as close to the edge of complete ruin.

No previous owner has ever been so self interested and had no regard whatsoever for the good of the club, compared to his own personal aims.

No-one previously associated with the club has ever put political aims first second and third in every decision he made at the club and used the club as nothing more than a political tool, let alone a political tool for an audience on the other side of the world.

The man was a leech. He fucked the club and is one of the luckiest people around that decent and honourable people happened to offering a way out at the time he had totally fucked us up.

Not to mention the ridiculous human rights and corruption issues that he brought to this club which have no place at any self respecting football club.

He got lucky with the sale, through no fault of his own - if anyone thinks that the current owners are so incompetent that they would only purchase the club from some dodgy twat who had 'a name that was known' and would have not bought from anyone else selling a fine club stuffed with potential but on the brink of ruin, they are doing the current owners a massive diservice and painting them as amateurs who only buy from snivelling toads thet have some association with, rather than the seriousbusinessmen that they are.

He was and is a twat, with no respect whatsoever for this club.

He would have seen this club go to the wall and not blinked once, apart from worrying that he might look a bit silly in front of his supporters in Thailand.

Thanking him for being in the right place at the right time is like thanking Shipman for having some cough medicine in his bag that fixed your sore throat whilst he was doing his rounds and trying to 'treat' your grandma.

This.......

This a second time.....

and, just to be sure, this once more for good luck.

And again.....

Didn't Gary Cooke also reveal in a recent interview he cried over the phone to his wife after he had realised the extent of the bullshit he had been fed after he arrived here and saw it at first hand and thought what the fuck have I done leaving a successful career behind in America.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

He left us in a much better place than he were in when we took over.

No - if we're being pedantic then he left us in something like £140m of debt instead of the £60m we were in before he took over. ADUG got us to that better place.

 

[BingoBango]

And again.....

Didn't Gary Cooke also reveal in a recent interview he cried over the phone to his wife after he had realised the extent of the bullshit he had been fed after he arrived here and saw it at first hand and thought what the fuck have I done leaving a successful career behind in America.

You're quite right. It's worth reading those interviews again to remind ourselves just how much shit we were in under Toxin. How close we came to the worst doesn't bear thinking about.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/19/inside-manchester-city-david-conn" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009 ... david-conn</a>

Cook had joined from Nike – reccommended by Joorabchian; they knew each other because Nike used to have Corinthians' kit deal. Publicly Cook was seen as an apologist for Thaksin, after a disastrous interview he gave at the fag end of the regime, in which he delivered the lines which always haunt him.

"Is he [Thaksin] a nice guy?" Cook had asked rhetorically. "Yes. Is he a great guy to play golf with? Yes. Does he have plenty of money to run a football club? Yes. I really care only about those three things. Whether he is guilty of something over in Thailand, I can't worry. My role is to run a football club."

Speaking before City's first home game this season, against Wolves, Cook addressed that character reference he gave for Thaksin, who was subsequently convicted of two corruption offences in absentia, and has allegations of serious human rights abuses long laid against him by Amnesty International.

"I feel dreadful about having said it," Cook said, making eye contact and looking genuinely, emotionally, contrite. "I have made some mistakes in my life, but I deeply regretted my failure to do proper research on Thaksin."

It all came out wrong, Cook winced. He had been trying to express the idea that he could not be deflected by Thaksin's political problems, which were outside his control. "The charges did not seem real," Cook said. "It felt like a political situation Thaksin had run away from. I did not want it to affect the day-to-day running of the football club but I was being enlightened on a daily basis."

In fact, Cook revealed, his own job had become a living nightmare as he too realised Thaksin's money was frozen but the people, and infrastructure, were not in place.

Cook felt that the job he had been brought to do, to lead a "renaissance" of City, was impossible, and that "the fabric of the football club had been taken away". He soon realised there was no money; City borrowed from Standard Bank against Premier League TV money not yet received, and bought players on deposit.

"Thaksin's money was locked away. Every bit of revenue was being accelerated and the players were being mortgaged. We got into a position where we couldn't pay the players – and John Wardle [the former chairman who had sold his shares and left the board] was asked to lend the club £2m. I was working stupid hours to make sure I was not missing anything; I was living in this paranoia."

Cook had been tempted away after 13 years at Nike's headquarters in Portland, Oregon, working his way through sales, and international business development, to latterly become president of the Jordan brand. He had been earning handsomely, and he came to believe he had made the biggest mistake of his life.

"My wife had packed up everything in our house in the States, the furniture was in transit, and I sat in my hotel room in Cheshire crying down the phone. I felt I had unravelled everything, undone all my hard work, because I had been seduced into this role. I realised I had taken my family into the lion's den."

 

[halfcenturyup]

And again.....

Didn't Gary Cooke also reveal in a recent interview he cried over the phone to his wife after he had realised the extent of the bullshit he had been fed after he arrived here and saw it at first hand and thought what the fuck have I done leaving a successful career behind in America.

You're quite right. It's worth reading those interviews again to remind ourselves just how much shit we were in under Toxin. How close we came to the worst doesn't bear thinking about.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/19/inside-manchester-city-david-conn" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009 ... david-conn</a>

Cook had joined from Nike – reccommended by Joorabchian; they knew each other because Nike used to have Corinthians' kit deal. Publicly Cook was seen as an apologist for Thaksin, after a disastrous interview he gave at the fag end of the regime, in which he delivered the lines which always haunt him.

"Is he [Thaksin] a nice guy?" Cook had asked rhetorically. "Yes. Is he a great guy to play golf with? Yes. Does he have plenty of money to run a football club? Yes. I really care only about those three things. Whether he is guilty of something over in Thailand, I can't worry. My role is to run a football club."

Speaking before City's first home game this season, against Wolves, Cook addressed that character reference he gave for Thaksin, who was subsequently convicted of two corruption offences in absentia, and has allegations of serious human rights abuses long laid against him by Amnesty International.

"I feel dreadful about having said it," Cook said, making eye contact and looking genuinely, emotionally, contrite. "I have made some mistakes in my life, but I deeply regretted my failure to do proper research on Thaksin."

It all came out wrong, Cook winced. He had been trying to express the idea that he could not be deflected by Thaksin's political problems, which were outside his control. "The charges did not seem real," Cook said. "It felt like a political situation Thaksin had run away from. I did not want it to affect the day-to-day running of the football club but I was being enlightened on a daily basis."

In fact, Cook revealed, his own job had become a living nightmare as he too realised Thaksin's money was frozen but the people, and infrastructure, were not in place.

Cook felt that the job he had been brought to do, to lead a "renaissance" of City, was impossible, and that "the fabric of the football club had been taken away". He soon realised there was no money; City borrowed from Standard Bank against Premier League TV money not yet received, and bought players on deposit.

"Thaksin's money was locked away. Every bit of revenue was being accelerated and the players were being mortgaged. We got into a position where we couldn't pay the players – and John Wardle [the former chairman who had sold his shares and left the board] was asked to lend the club £2m. I was working stupid hours to make sure I was not missing anything; I was living in this paranoia."

Cook had been tempted away after 13 years at Nike's headquarters in Portland, Oregon, working his way through sales, and international business development, to latterly become president of the Jordan brand. He had been earning handsomely, and he came to believe he had made the biggest mistake of his life.

"My wife had packed up everything in our house in the States, the furniture was in transit, and I sat in my hotel room in Cheshire crying down the phone. I felt I had unravelled everything, undone all my hard work, because I had been seduced into this role. I realised I had taken my family into the lion's den."

and this, a million times this ......

 

[Cambridgeblue]

Not everyone feels the need to stick a camera in the face of every famous person they happen to meet in a shopping centre.

The Shinawatras live here so it's hardly the most outlandish claim ever made on this website.

I lived in London for three years but I never met the Queen !

Really? I saw her stumbling out of an O'Neils on Frday night, she was proper shitfaced...

 

[Marvin]

This.......

This a second time.....

and, just to be sure, this once more for good luck.

And again.....

Didn't Gary Cooke also reveal in a recent interview he cried over the phone to his wife after he had realised the extent of the bullshit he had been fed after he arrived here and saw it at first hand and thought what the fuck have I done leaving a successful career behind in America.

But the full picture is the political background to Thaksin's prosecution, and not his competence as a football owner. In other words disarray is inevitable when you are facing arrest, and the confisaction of your entire wealth.

I don't know the connections between Thaksin and the new owners, but I think they are a lot stronger than chance / luck. Links were established between Thaksin and Middle-Eastern states long before the current takeover was completed, and Thaksin has been residing in the UAE for some time.

City fans have been critcised by the likes of Hattenstone for turning a blind eye to Thaksin's politics, but are they any worse than the Government of the UAE or Western Governments? The problem is the whole system of private ownership and it's just plain dumb to cherry-pick on an ethical basis who is a good owner and who is a bad owner. In this system, the bottom line is who has the wealth, and who is prepared to invest that wealth in the football club. On that basis Sheikh Mansour is the ideal owner

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

But the full picture is the political background to Thaksin's prosecution, and not his competence as a football owner. In other words disarray is inevitable when you are facing arrest, and the confisaction of your entire wealth.

Wardle should have taken that into account as all this was going on when he was selling the club to Thaksin. It didn't happen afterwards. Wardle accepted the offer two weeks AFTER Thaksin's assets were frozen. He could (and should) have said he wasn't prepared to commit until the assets and corruption issues were resolved. No business in its right mind would accept
a bid from someone who was facing serious charges and who couldn't get his hands on the money he was promising.

City fans have been critcised by the likes of Hattenstone for turning a blind eye to Thaksin's politics, but are they any worse than the Government of the UAE or Western Governments? The problem is the whole system of private ownership and it's just plain dumb to cherry-pick on an ethical basis who is a good owner and who is a bad owner. In this system, the bottom line is who has the wealth, and who is prepared to invest that wealth in the football club. On that basis Sheikh Mansour is the ideal owner

That really is a muddle-heaed and outrageous statement. We have to draw the line somewhere. The Premier League is a so-called global brand and brands have to protect their reputation or they will eb tainted. People like Sacha Gaydamak at Pompey should never have been allowed to own that (or any other) club as he is clearly little more than a figurehead for his father, who is wanted on an international arrest warrant. Mandaric, like Wardle, was more worried about getting his money out than the reputation of the club. Thaksin represented a clear and massive reputational risk. Eventually that became clear even to that numb-skull Scudamore, who was actively ringing round people trying to find a buyer for City just to get rid of Thaksin.

Ashley & Al Fahim are patently clueless clowns who had no idea what they were doing when they bought their respective clubs. I know from a trusted source that Ashley's motivation was "Hey, wouldn't it be a laugh to own a Premiership club." Even if the people who sold to them saw them coming a mile off. they still should have had to satisfy the football authorities that they had the finance and business plan to run that club properly.

When you interview someone for a job, you need to check they have the skills and experience to do that job, as well as being someone who will fit in with the organisation and the other people. Likewise, if you go to a job interview and you see people running around shouting and swearing at each other and coming to blows, I would imagine that you would be very wary of that company, no matter how much money they were offering.

 

[Gordyola]

Why are you 'thanking' this bellend?

No previous owner of the club has ever had less regard for the club, the fans and what it means to people.

No previous owner has ever driven the club as close to the edge of complete ruin.

No previous owner has ever been so self interested and had no regard whatsoever for the good of the club, compared to his own personal aims.

No-one previously associated with the club has ever put political aims first second and third in every decision he made at the club and used the club as nothing more than a political tool, let alone a political tool for an audience on the other side of the world.

The man was a leech. He fucked the club and is one of the luckiest people around that decent and honourable people happened to offering a way out at the time he had totally fucked us up.

Not to mention the ridiculous human rights and corruption issues that he brought to this club which have no place at any self respecting football club.

He got lucky with the sale, through no fault of his own - if anyone thinks that the current owners are so incompetent that they would only purchase the club from some dodgy twat who had 'a name that was known' and would have not bought from anyone else selling a fine club stuffed with potential but on the brink of ruin, they are doing the current owners a massive diservice and painting them as amateurs who only buy from snivelling toads thet have some association with, rather than the seriousbusinessmen that they are.

He was and is a twat, with no respect whatsoever for this club.

He would have seen this club go to the wall and not blinked once, apart from worrying that he might look a bit silly in front of his supporters in Thailand.

Thanking him for being in the right place at the right time is like thanking Shipman for having some cough medicine in his bag that fixed your sore throat whilst he was doing his rounds and trying to 'treat' your grandma.

Thought you were referring to Swales at first

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Oh - and I forgot to mention that far from "...facing confiscation of his entire wealth..." he had at least as much mney secreted away offshore as he had in Thailand. One estimate is that he had a staggering $1.2bn (that's billion) in various offshore accounts.

If you want the story of just one of these (and there were probably at least 6 or 7 more) just google "Ample Rich".

 

[M18CTID]

Why are you 'thanking' this bellend?

No previous owner of the club has ever had less regard for the club, the fans and what it means to people.

No previous owner has ever driven the club as close to the edge of complete ruin.

No previous owner has ever been so self interested and had no regard whatsoever for the good of the club, compared to his own personal aims.

No-one previously associated with the club has ever put political aims first second and third in every decision he made at the club and used the club as nothing more than a political tool, let alone a political tool for an audience on the other side of the world.

The man was a leech. He fucked the club and is one of the luckiest people around that decent and honourable people happened to offering a way out at the time he had totally fucked us up.

Not to mention the ridiculous human rights and corruption issues that he brought to this club which have no place at any self respecting football club.

He got lucky with the sale, through no fault of his own - if anyone thinks that the current owners are so incompetent that they would only purchase the club from some dodgy twat who had 'a name that was known' and would have not bought from anyone else selling a fine club stuffed with potential but on the brink of ruin, they are doing the current owners a massive diservice and painting them as amateurs who only buy from snivelling toads thet have some association with, rather than the seriousbusinessmen that they are.

He was and is a twat, with no respect whatsoever for this club.

He would have seen this club go to the wall and not blinked once, apart from worrying that he might look a bit silly in front of his supporters in Thailand.

Thanking him for being in the right place at the right time is like thanking Shipman for having some cough medicine in his bag that fixed your sore throat whilst he was doing his rounds and trying to 'treat' your grandma.

Thought you were referring to Swales at first

Thought something similar myself.

Obviously, JMA wasn't around when a certain PJ Swales was our chairman ;)

 

[1_barry_conlon]

Thought i'd bump this to show how times have changed.

 

[Krieng_Thai OSC]

How we can say he uses City as politic vehicle. He can win general election any time with or without him being owner of City. City only help him to heal his pain after coup.
He wanted to be an owner of football club for long time. He wanted to buy Liverpool during his term in office but it wasn't appropriate to do so. Then it was his time after coup that he did what he wanted and nobody can said anything about.
Some owners have a club for business, promote themselves, for the love of the club and so on. In Thaksin case, it wasn't anything but to enjoy his time and for the love of the game.

City didn't give him any much money or further recognition after him already a prime minister. And politics didn't give him any good. He could be richer if not involve in politics.

He is just a man with a big dream.

 

[dw7]

How we can say he uses City as politic vehicle. He can win general election any time with or without him being owner of City. City only help him to heal his pain after coup.
He wanted to be an owner of football club for long time. He wanted to buy Liverpool during his term in office but it wasn't appropriate to do so. Then it was his time after coup that he did what he wanted and nobody can said anything about.
Some owners have a club for business, promote themselves, for the love of the club and so on. In Thaksin case, it wasn't anything but to enjoy his time and for the love of the game.

City didn't give him any much money or further recognition after him already a prime minister. And politics didn't give him anything as well. He could be richer if not involve in politics.

He is just a man with a big dream.

wow !!!!!!!

was your computer broke

 

[california blue]

Hilter supposed to be a nice guy too.

 

[kippax_blueboy]

Wheres Rascal?

How many thousands of words did Rasc write about Thaksin.

He still controls Thailand with his sister now PM.

The last 15 years at City sure has been a crazy roller coaster.

I still don't like Leslie.