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Thailand's adhoc football development

16th September, 2011
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Roar Guru
16th September, 2011
11
1530 Reads

The War Elephants’ recent performance against Australia and Oman certainly raised eyebrows in a number of quarters. The surprising thing is less that the Thais can play football, but more that football development in Thailand is gathering pace despite the best efforts of the Football Association of Thailand (FAT).

Governance in the highest echelons of Thai football has often been a fraught affair.

In recent years Thai sides have missed the AFC Champions League as the FAT failed to submit documents on time, they hosted a pseudo national Zimbabwe side and FAT President, Worawi Makudi, is currently defending a raft of corruption allegations relating to the 2022 FIFA World Cup bid and his involvement with Bin Hammam in his failed bid for the FIFA Presidency.

Yet despite the confusion at the top, some solid local initiatives are being pursued that are boosting Thailand’s football stocks.

One such booster has been the explosive arrival of Muangthong United onto the Thai Football scene. In 2007 they won the 3rd division, 2008 the 2nd and in 2009 & 2010 have taken the Thai Premier League.

Backed by the Siam Sports Syndicate they do not lack for money, recently acquiring Robbie Fowler and attracting a large following. Their arrival has raised the bar of the Thai Premier League and all clubs are now having to improve the quality of their squads and coaching in order to keep up.

However perhaps more significantly has been the adoption by Chonburi Province of the AFC’s Vision Asia programme. Vision Asia is a development framework that is designed to improve the quality of participating associations.

The FAT nominally agreed to become involved with Vision Asia and then appeared to forget about it. Chonburi Province subsequently seized the initiative.

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In 2009 Chonburi formed their own FA and developed a long term strategic plan for development in the province. This involved the establishment of a provincial league, coaching development, youth development, sports medicine improvements, referee development as well as women’s football and futsal development.

This included working with the provincial department of education to support competitions between primary and high schools across the province.

All of this to provide structure between children in the villages and Thai Premier League powerhouse Chonburi FC.

Chonburi formed a template for development in Thailand and now other provinces are considering the adoption of a similar structured approach.

Initial work has already begun with the provinces of Phuket and Khon Kaen. However, these form only three of Thailand’s 76 provinces.

In Thailand there are a number of other isolated initiatives which are driving the development of football, resulting in the Thai side we see today. However without a structured national approach the War Elephants risk mirroring Thai national football development; flashes of inspiration but ultimately lacking consistency.

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