Sawt Falasteen - Thai football body to sue former chief over finances

Football is enormously popular in Thailand, though fans' attention is mostly focused on the English Premier League.

Nualphan Lamsam took over as president of the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) last year after her predecessor quit in the wake of a shocking on-pitch brawl between Thai and Indonesian players during the 2023 Southeast Asian Games final.

Known as Madam Pang, her family own one of Thailand's largest life insurance firms.

Last week the Supreme Court ordered FAT to pay a sports media company a total of 560 million baht (around $17 million) over the "unfair termination" of a television rights contract.

The dispute stemmed from a decision taken under former FAT president Somyot Poompanmoung -- who was previously appointed as national police chief after the military coup of 2014.

The FAT board voted Friday to sue Somyot and his board of directors over the "dire state of the association's finances", Nualphan said.

Somyot has not commented to Thai media on the case, and AFP was unable to immediately reach him for comment on Friday.

Nualphan told reporters earlier this week that the organisation was already 105 million baht in debt when she took over, and it borrowed $5 million from FIFA in 2020.

"When I took over, there was nothing but debt," she said then, holding back tears. "I am doing my best to resolve this crisis, but these problems were not created during my tenure."

W.AbuLaban--SF-PST