Thai Soccer

[ncr]

Can anyone enlighten me on this -

In a country as football-mad as Thailand, why is there no nationwide professional football league? (Or is there?) Only the strange (and utterly uninteresting) Bangkok league, where teams like "Tobacco Monopoly" and "Thai Air Force" battle each other.

(By the way, do these names mean the players actually have to come from the Air Force, Bangkok Bank, BEC Tero etc., or are these just the name sponsors? :confused: )

Would be so nice to have teams from Chiang Mai, Khorat, Hat Yai and elsewhere competing against each other in a league format!

What are the reasons behind the current situation? Financial? Other?

[GWR]

I haven't kept up with it, but I swear Satun used to be in the BEC TERO League and were well-regarded. Apparently, it was one of the few happening things there. Don't get me wrong! Satun is one of my favorite provinces. There is also a Hat-Yai FC according to car stickers. They play in the Jiranakorn Stadium, but I have no idea who they play.

Perhaps even more surprising is that Hat-Yai has an annual Rugby Sevens Tournie at the same stadium in September which attracts teams from quite a few areas of Asia. It's really quite amusing to see rugger-buggers wending their way back to the hotel still in their kit; and then later being cattle-trucked off to 'The Pink Lady' et al by songthaew for a bit of R&R. I suspect that is just one more reason why this tournie continues.

[Yappofloyd]

Khun ncr,

If I am not mistaken there are two 'national' leagues which compete with each other. The Bangkok League which is uninteresting as you say and company themed and which only pulls crowds and the companies tell their workers to go etc. There is also a 16/18 odd (?) province based national league but I forget the actual name which is the poor cousin but pulls bigger crowds in the provinces for obvious reasons.

There seems to be a lot of internal sporting politics which has resulted in this dual competing structure. Perhaps not a surprise given the political nature of sporting politics here and especially with football. Look at the national team selection and constant interference by the board in coaching decisions/selections.

Late last year Cabinet instructed the Sports MInistry to establish a new Premier National League by next year (I think) to finally provided a well funded, professional national league (perhaps another 'hub' agenda!). Anyway, there were a couple of articles on this if you want exact details search Nation/Post as my info is from memory.

[Pas]

I think the football players in Thailand also get really low wage so they all go to Malaysia or Singapore. The govt weren't fully committed to start a league here.. it's been talked about for many years.

There's also apparent lack of regional identities that one associate with a sport clubs (unlike other countries like US, UK for example) eventhough we have things like the national game and the university game.

edit:
for NCR.. found a list of the National (Bangkok) League:

National League


Bangkok Bank Ltd
Bangkok University
BEC Tero Sasana
Krung Thai Bank
Osotspa
Port Authority
Royal Thai Air Force
Royal Thai Navy
Sinthana
Thailand Tobacco Monopoly

http://www.aboutaball.co.uk/html2/countries/thailand.php

[ncr]

Thanks for all your answers.....

By the way, what is the reason behind the name BEC Tero Sasana? As far as I know, BEC Tero is an entertainment/media company, while sa(t)sana means "religion" in Thai...... so what? :confused:

[GWR]

http://chattirak.freeyellow.com/sitemap.html
Scroll down and you will find a rather dated list of both league's teams. I have no idea whether the Pro league still exists. I guess Songkhla FC plays in the Tinsulanonda Stadium, which has played host to a few international matches in recent years. And was it a visit by Man U or Liverpool?

Songkhla also gets International Beach Volleyball Tournaments.

[ncr]

I have no idea whether the Pro league still exists.At least one never hears anything about it.............

[ncr]

Some related news:

Editorial: Football has to score big this time (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/08/21/opinion/index.php?news=opinion_18394951.html) - The Nation, 21 August 2005

All the existing signs show that the Thaksin administration predictably seems to be leaning toward its usual philosophy that money can make everything happen. For all the optimism stemming from Friday’s formal decision to create a full-scale professional football league here, one couldn’t help but doubt if we were actually on the verge of something big or had just fallen into an offside trap.......[...]

[The Enforcer!]

What happened to the Caltex League?

The Enforcer!

[Yappofloyd]

I thought that this was all part of the grand plan for resolving problems in the south....get a professional league started including teams in the south, get the 'restless young men' to watch football on cable/sat TV (Shin corp provided of course) and then get them to gamble on the outcome. :rolleyes:

[Ahoerstemeier]

According to a post in a German forum on Thai topics the single professional league will start this December, with the following teams:

Krung Thai Bank, Tobacco Monopoly, BEC Tero Sasana, Provincial Electricity, Osotspa, Port Authority, Bangkok University, Bangkok Bank, Royal Thai Army, FC Thai Honda, Chon Buri and Suphan Buri.

Apparently the last two ones are from the provincial league, while the other 10 are from the National League.

Source (http://www.nittaya.de/viewtopic.php?t=13684&start_t=15&topicdays=0)

[GWR]

Can't remember just how the expression goes, but it's something like this: 'To the man with a good hammer, the solution to every problem is to use the hammer'. (You're very welcome to put me right on the exact wording of this aphorism.)

Thus Taksin has tried to solve all sorts of problems using his 'Media & Communication' Hammer. Even had the gall to think he could sort out the Burma/Myanmar morass in a way that would make money for Shin.

Chaovalit tried to use the Golf Club to solve the same problem; indeed he tried to use it for every problem.

[Yappofloyd]

So the big sport heavyweights have put aside their financial differences, for now, and have mereged the two seperate leagues into one. It took a long time...

Thai soccer leagues to merge The Nation 07/01/07

[SOCCER] The Football Association of Thailand (FAT) and Sports Authority of Thailand (SAT) yesterday reached an agreement to merge the hitherto separately run Thailand Premier League and Thailand Professional League, finally putting an end to an issue which has dragged on for more than a year.
At the end of 2005, the FAT set up the 12-team Thailand Premier League, intended to be the country's top league, mostly made up of teams based in Bangkok. It soon faced competition following the foundation of the Thailand Professional League, set up by the SAT and consisting of provincial teams.

All agreed that it was no good for Thai football to have two leagues, and there was an attempt to merge them, but the issue long remained unresolved, causing sceptics to accuse the organisations of squabbling over the merged budget. After a meeting at SAT headquarters yesterday afternoon, the two parties at last broke the deadlock and launched a revamped Thailand Premier League, which will kick off on March 18.

It has 16 members, with 12 teams playing in the last season, two from Division 1 and two from Professional League 1. The Royal Thai Police and Royal Thai Navy qualified from Division 1 as champions and runners-up respectively while TOT and Nakhon Pathom qualified from Professional League 1. Division 1 has 24 members, seven from last season, two from Division 2, 11 from Professional League 1 and two from the Professional League.