BANGKOK: Controversial FIFA executive member Worawi Makudi has become embroiled in a scrap with two Thai parliamentary bodies over the complex affairs of the domestic game writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

A House committee and a Senate panel are inquiring into alleged irregularities at the Football Association of Thailand.

Worawi, president of the Football Association of Thailand, answered a summons earlier this week to appear before the committee which wanted information on the body’s contentious contract with Siam Sport Syndicate. The latter oversaw the commercial rights of the Thai Premier League unjtil terminating the contract earlier this year.

The panel also asked Worawi how shareholders of TPL Co, which runs the league, were selected.

Worawi said the details of the contract with Siam Sport were confidential and challenged the committee’s jurisdiction on the basis that the FAT is a legal entity. He said he attended only to answer a question over whether the FAT had paid all proper taxes which it had.

Panel members responded that they had every right to inquire because the FAT claimed to be a representative of Thailand and received financial support from the sports ministry.

In a separate development the South Korean company Daihan Yonhap (formerly Daihan 21) submitted documentation to the Senate committee concerning a previous contract with the FAT concerning its commercial and broadcasting rights between 2007 and 2011.

Daihan Yonhap is sueing the FAT and Worawi for alleged fraud. It claims to have paid US$900,000 to FAT but had not been granted any rights in return. Makudi and the FAT have denied the claims.

Last year Worawi was cleared by FIFA’s ethics committee over allegations, which he denied, that the country’s national football centre had been built with money from FIFA on land owned by Worawi.

** Grand Sport has appointed kit supplier by the FAT on a three-year contract worth £1.3m after outbidding Football Thai.

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