Burmese general considered buying Manchester United, according to WikiLeaks
Commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Burma, Than Shwe, considered making a $1bn bid for Manchester United in January 2009. According to a cable from the US embassy in Rangoon, Shwe’s grandson was the one urging the leader
of the Burmese military junta to launch a takeover bid for the football club in order to distract the Burmese people from the country’s ongoing political and economic woes.
"One well-connected source reports that the grandson wanted Than Shwe to offer $1bn for Manchester United," said the June 2009 cable to Washington.
The plan was apparently being made around the same time that the United Nations was very harshly remonstrating with the Burmese government over its “unacceptably slow” response to Cyclone Nargis, the worst natural disaster in Burma’s
recorded history.
Shwe eventually concluded that making the bid would invite international outrage, but this revelation – brought to public attention by WikiLeaks – will undoubtedly further highlight the regime’s cruelty.
Despite not going ahead with the bid, Shwe did then order the establishment of a multimillion-dollar national football league while survivors of the cyclone were still without proper shelter, clean water, or any means of livelihood.
The sum quoted as the bid for Manchester United was the very same amount that was estimated by aid agencies to be required to meet the most urgent needs of cyclone survivors. Shwe was accused of bribing and persuading eight different bureaucrats to establish
new teams and build million-dollar stadiums by 2011.
"When asked why the owners would participate in such an expensive endeavour, [an executive with one company sponsor] observed that they had little choice," the US cable reported. "'When the senior general asks someone to do something,
you do it with no complaints,' he stated."
As far as the intersection between politics and sports is concerned, this is not an isolated incident. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is reported to have hired spies to keep a keen look on the team’s football players and
personally sacked the national team’s coach after it lost to Saudi Arabia. In a move to win back the confidence of the team, Ahmadinejad then allowed the team to use his own private jet to play an away fixture in North Korea.
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