All is well with Thai football, says chief Somyot
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The president of Football Association of Thailand Somyot Poompanmuang brought together national coach Kiatisak Senamuang and technical director Withaya Laohakul yesterday as a gesture to quash growing speculation over a rift between the pair.
Recent interviews in the local media led people to suspect that the two might have difference concerning the plan to prepare the team for the third and final round of Asian qualifying for the 2018 World Cup that will get underway in September.
However, both Kiatisak and Withaya attended the meeting with Somyot to discuss the team’s preparation for the last 12-team round, where four automatic World Cup berths besides a playoff spot are up for grabs.
In a gesture to show there was no animosity between the pair, Somyot got both the men shaking hands in front of the press. The FA boss later said the discussion was held in cordial atmosphere as everyone had the common goal of helping Thailand’s football prosper.
Somyot said the meeting agreed to put the country’s bid to qualify for its first ever World Cup as a priority for the short term.
“We agreed that we should focus on the senior side as a top priority. We believe we should not have too many targets at the same time since we could end up failing to achieve anything.
“The senior side gets closer to the World Cup finals so we hope the supporters would accept and understand our policy. Nevertheless, we’ll try to maintain our standard with other squads of the national team.
“I also ask coach ‘Heng’ [Withaya] to draw up a long term development plan for the national side and get them play a certain playing style. No matter who the coach is, they should play the same system, which would help the players clear in their objective and less confused.
“We’ll ask Zico’s [Kiatisak] advice about how we should play. I must say that we work as a team with a clear objective. There’s no bickering or anything like that,” said Somyot, who was elected to run the Thai FA last month.
