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Thaksin is hoping Manchester City bid will inspire youths

Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's ousted prime minister who is bidding for Manchester City, said yesterday he hoped to inspire poor Asian children by owning an English soccer club.

Thaksin, a self-made billionaire and avid soccer fan, is considered the favorite to takeover Manchester City in a deal estimated at around ?100 million (US$197 million).

"In getting involved in the football club in England or in the Premier League, we will allow another window open for the younger generation in Asia. That is what I think," the exiled former leader told reporters in Tokyo.

"Anything that we can do to provide opportunities to younger generations in Asia, we should do it," he said.

Thaksin's great-grandfather was an impoverished Chinese immigrant, and he said that in Thailand "there are still many poor but talented" children.

He said that in the West, sports "provide opportunities for the gifted young generation to have an opportunity to show themselves, to make themselves a millionaire."

In 2004 Thaksin led a Thai consortium that tried to buy a 30 percent stake in Liverpool, angering some local fans who wanted to keep the team in British hands.

After being ousted by a military coup in September last year, the former Thai prime minister has spent much of his time in London in between traveling around the world.

Thaksin is in Tokyo to take up a position as visiting professor of business and economics at Takushoku University.

"I've tried to find myself a job by employing myself as a chairman of a football club, but it's not quick enough," he said with a laugh. "The university is quicker by employing me as a visiting professor."

He said it was his "first employment after being ousted and unemployed for a while."

Senior judges last week dissolved Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party and banned the twice-elected premier from politics for five years.
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