Worawi slams accusations of unfair vote
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Worawi Makudi reiterated yesterday that his re-election as Thai FA president for a fourth consecutive term was fair and square despite allegations of wrongdoing that marred the election.
Worawi beat his challenger Virach Chanpanich 42-28 in Thursday’s vote, to retain the post that he has held since 2007. However, the association-appointed Electoral Committee did not approve the outcome, citing irregularities related to the voting process.
The 62-year-old called a press conference yesterday and claimed the EC had no right to disapprove the vote, which had been delayed for five months following the expiry of Worawi’s third two-year mandate in June.
“The EC only has the right to announce the result. They didn’t have the power to approve the outcome. Everyone knows the EC’s duty ended immediately after the election finished. I consider what EC member Chanint Kaenhiran said the other day [in citing election irregularities as the reason for refusing to ratify the vote] to be [a] personal [attack].
One alleged irregularity cited by the EC was the last-minute change of an appeal panel set to deal with complaints about who had voting rights for six member clubs.
“On the issue of the appeal panel change, it was just something we were permitted to do, and Virach himself changed an EC member. All these things came under our agreement – we could make changes in case anyone was unavailable for duty,” said Worawi, who also sits on Fifa’s executive committee.
Regarding allegations that he meddled to influence voting, Worawi insisted he had respected the principle of mutual respect and sportsmanship.
“It’s just a case of respecting the honour of each other. What’s most important is the authorisation letter [to vote]. It’s a question of who got the voting rights from each club. Virach’s camp also had Khun Chada Chaiseth attending the poll.
“He is the Uthaithani club president but he represented Paknampho club in the poll. I didn’t argue on that point because I thought that the authorisation letter was what mattered. On the issue of electoral codes that prohibited administrative board members taking part in the poll, it’s not a problem because they all resigned from the post before the election so they were eligible to vote,” said Worawi.
