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.
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.
Qantas supports Australian Football
Guest
You do realise that the Boomers is the Basketball nickname and the Galahs (thankfully) belongs to the AFL. I'm not a fan of the nick name Socceroos as you would have probably guessed.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Good to hear FU. I can remember in 2006 (I think) when the prize money for the 1st division went missing and the authorities appeared very unconcerned. Fate then proved she has wicked sense of humour by ensuring that the winners that year were Police United FC :D . The authorities subsequently showed far greater interest in the incident..
BigAl
Guest
'..thankfull...' ?? Boomers would honestly be the best nickname that any Australian sporting team could wish for. What 'War Elephants' are to Thailand, Boomers are to Australia. . . you do know that Boomer is the name given to the biggest and most powerful kangaroos ??
Qantas supports Australian Football
Guest
Yes indeed and we can also be thankful that the name Galahs has been taken up by another code..
Football United
Guest
depends on the referees as Asian refs crack down on nearly any physical contact.
PaddyBoy
Guest
Good article. The Thai's were a lot more impressive than I expected them to be, pretty solid at holding posession, but as has been said by FU, not too strong. Would building a national football team build on physical dominance succeed in Asia? This might be seen as a bit backward but an imposing physical style could dominate teams like Japan rather than focus on smaller men dominating possession in midfield. We are in a pretty unique situation in that we primarily play small opposition with larger men, and normally I would hate this idea.
Football United
Guest
Great article Ben. I lived in bangkok for five years and went through their grassroots system. It has to be said that at that level their technical skill is far superior to Australia. Many kids in the city grow up playing in narrow alleyways and car parks so they usually don't just have that initial instinct to kick it long. however there was top end issues as well such as mismanagement/disappearance of registration fees which led to a big admin clear out in the region. Apart from the one's you have discussed, the main handicap for the kids to have successful careers in the game are, 1. Physical strength. Thailand has always struggled to get it's players physically strong enough to compete internationally. Until recently i hadn't seen a dedicated effort by clubs to build up their young players to this point. 2.Youth payment. There is pressure on kids from some of the poorer sides of town to get a job asap out of school. Youth players rarely get paid much and sometimes are forced to quit so they can support their family. 3. Armed services involvement in the Premier League. They are holding back the game by poaching quality youth with higher salaries to play and work for them. these kids rarely can put a series of games together due to their new job commitments and usually are unable to get the proper football coaching that they need to progress.
BigAl
Guest
The Boomers ! . . . oh wait
PaddyBoy
Guest
Whaaatt? The Socceroos is a glorious nickname. War Elephants is pretty bad-ass though.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Replace "Thai football" with "Thailand"in the sentence 'Governance in the highest echelons of Thai football has often been a fraught affair' and you have it nailed.
Qantas supports Australian Football
Guest
I really love the nick-name 'The War Elephants" why can't we invent an interesting nick-name like the Thais have. .. good read Ben.