BANGKOK - Manchester City has closed down its Thailand
operations following former owner and ex-Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra's sale of the club, ending ambitious plans of becoming
"Asia's Premier League team."
Jimmy Heosontaty, City's former representative in Thailand, said
plans for an academy had been scrapped and the club's merchandise
shop, launched to great fanfare last year, had closed due to a lack
of interest.
"We saw no point in carrying on after the (Shinawatra) family
sold their share," he told Reuters on Friday. "City still have fans
here, but there's not a lot of interest anymore."
Thaksin, convicted of graft last year and a fugitive overseas,
bought City in July 2007, 10 months after he ousted in a bloodless
military coup.
He hoped to make City Asia's most popular club and signed three
barely-known Thai players, a move widely dismissed as a political
ploy to earn the support of soccer-mad Thais for a party formed by
his supporters.
Amid rising discontent among City fans over his treatment of
then manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, Thaksin sold the club to a
consortium from the United Arab Emirates in September and has been
on the run since his British visa was revoked in November.