Thaksin Shinawatra offers to resign as pressure grows

“The term 'fit and proper' is a pretty broad one. I mean, is he a nice guy? Yes. Is he a great guy to play golf with? Yes. Has he got the finances to run a football club? Yes. I really care about those three things. Whether he is guilty of something over there, I can't worry too much about that.”
The man in question is Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister of Thailand, who is holed up in Surrey, seeking political asylum in Britain, after refusing to face corruption charges in his homeland earlier this month. The man doing the talking and, one suspects, the caddying, is Garry Cook, appointed by Thaksin as executive chairman of Manchester City with the mission of delivering his vision of a club that is the equal of its neighbour.
First things first: according to Cook, Thaksin is “embarrassed” about the damage that his legal, political and financial circumstances have inflicted upon City of late; Thaksin has offered to resign from the club's board in order to alleviate growing pressure from the Premier League, whose “fit and proper person” test he no longer seems to satisfy; Thaksin is close to selling a significant minority stake in City to another Asian tycoon who will help to bankroll the club while £800million of his own assets remain frozen in Thailand.
The financial picture at City is far healthier than it appears from the outside, despite a recent flurry of borrowing from the banks and from John Wardle, the former chairman. Thaksin recognises that he made mistakes last summer and is prepared to be realistic, rather than ruthless, with Mark Hughes, the new manager. Even if no outside investment is forthcoming before the transfer window closes in nine days, Hughes has money to spend on new players.
Cook's intention was to assure the media and, by extension, the club's supporters, and holding court at the City of Manchester Stadium this week, he did that. But he also talked about the pressing need to sign a superstar in order to satisfy his and Thaksin's global ambitions and expressed disapproval of a City veteran team's use of the club's “intellectual property” in a Masters tournament.
He also predicted that the club not only could, but would, become as big as Manchester United and, to the horror of the traditionalists among us, declared that, in order to embrace the challenges of globalisation, he would favour a 14-club breakaway Premier League with no promotion and no relegation. With City in it, presumably.
Football is changing and, in Cook, an intelligent, dynamic executive who was born in Birmingham but has spent much of his working life in the United States as a creative force behind the expansion of the Nike brand, Thaksin has found a man to help City embrace those changes.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Put it this way, Richard Scudamore, the Premier League chief executive, has found a kindred spirit. Where he and Scudamore differ is on the subject of Thaksin, but Cook and the owner are in constant discussion with the league to try to find ways around the “fit and proper” hurdle.
“Dr Thaksin has been really open about this,” Cook said. “The man is embarrassed about the indignity brought on the club and on the league. He never intended for this to be the case. He has said to me: ‘If you need me to resign as a director to serve the needs of the Premier League, I'm fine with that as long as it doesn't change anything else.' There is this fit and proper person's test and that's one of the reasons why we would maybe look to take him off the board as a director.
“We're talking about a lot of things. We've talked about restructuring the board and selling part of his stake to an equity partner, who could come in and take some of the pressure away.
“Three months ago, the situation was very different and then it took a turn [the corruption charges and Thaksin's refusal to face them] that changed the whole aspect of it. We've talked about many different options. One thing we're adamant about is not giving up the majority stake-holding. And we're not looking at [selling to] institutions. It's a friend of a friend.”
Cook suggested that investment could be secured within days, giving Hughes further room for manoeuvre before the transfer window closes on September 1. Hughes would be forgiven for regretting his decision to leave the comfort of Ewood Park for the madness of City, but Cook said that he did not mislead the manager about the situation that he was coming into.
“I actually painted a picture of instability for Mark,” he said. “We told him there was plenty of money to spend on players, but that we had taken in some players that weren't right for the club. Our acquisition and disposal strategy was wrong and it is still coming back to bite us a little bit.
“We have talked about the need to sign a superstar, a global franchise entity. We went after Ronaldinho and we nearly got him. We told Mark not to come here if he thought we didn't need a superstar. I know people are going to say: ‘Here we go again, another guy from America telling us how it should be'.
“But in the intellectual property world of running a football club, when you have 3.7 billion people looking at you, you have to move away from football the way it is. It's reality. China and India, 30 per cent of the world's population, are gagging for football content to watch and we want to try to tell them that Manchester City is their content.”
These grandiose plans invite the inevitable question: can City ever become the equal, in global terms, of Manchester United? “We will,” Cook said. “If I didn't have that goal, I wouldn't be here. Can we? Yes. Will we? It might take a bit longer. At Nike you don't sit around saying, 'Can we?' you say, 'We will'. I've got to change that here. I call it the cultural cascade.
“I talk to my employees and I get: 'This is England, not America, you know,' 'This is Manchester, not London, you know,' 'This is Manchester City, not Man United, you know.' We have to change that culture.”
Before they can even think about that, City must change the culture of self-harm that has hindered the club for about four decades. Things seemed to be changing under the previous board until Thaksin came along last summer with his plans for global domination.
Time will tell whether he is the long-awaited saviour of Manchester City or whether the club, with a megalomaniac owner at the wheel, is hurtling towards oblivion in a golf kart.
Blue Moon with stars in its eyes: big names who would fit the bill
Ronaldo (AC Milan and Brazil, aged 31): No longer the force he was but still a marketing man's dream, despite the goofy teeth and the spare tyre around the waist. Manchester City have inquired about him in the past and will no doubt do so again. Cook's associations with Nike, the player's sponsor, could help.
Thierry Henry (Barcelona and France, 31): Another Nike client and another who, as he finds himself on the wrong side of the hill, might return to the Premier League for one final pay day.
Carlos Tévez (Manchester United and Argentina, 24): A long shot, but not quite as outlandish as it might sound. United are not guaranteed to pay the £32million required to buy out his contract from the businessmen, such as Kia Joorabchian, who “own” him. Joorabchian has close links with Thaksin Shinawatra, the City owner.
Ronaldinho (AC Milan and Brazil, 28): A persistent chase may have ended in predictable failure this summer, but at least he now knows there are two clubs in Manchester. A realistic option if things do not work out in Milan.
FROM:TIMESONLINE