Thailand Football

Thais are crazy about football but unfortunately it’s not Thailand Football that they’re mostly interested in but the English Premier League. Thailand Football definitely comes second best among the fans. On match nights, the Bars and Restaurants with big screens are packed with fanatical supporters and those fortunate enough to have cable television are glued to their screens. Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea are the favourite teams in Thailand and when any of these teams come here to play a friendly, tickets are sold out instantly.

Professional Thailand Football is still in its infancy even though football was introduced to Thailand as long ago as 1897.

Thailand now has a professional league system of its own and there are signs that standards are improving with several players finding openings with clubs abroad. The Thailand National Team has recently appointed Bryan Robson, formerly of Manchester United, as Head Coach in an effort to put Thailand on the football map. Thailand has been reasonably successful in S.E. Asia but has made little impact elsewhere. Thailand is desperate for football success and its millions of football supporters are demanding it.

Thailand’s National Football Team was founded in 1915 and was originally known as the Siam National Football Team but became the Thailand National Football Team in 1949 when Siam changed its name to Thailand. Thailand’s National stadium is Rajamangala in Bangkok which was built in 1998 for the Asian Games. The capacity of Rajamangala National Stadium is 60,000.

Thailand’s professional league system is made up of 3 divisions. The Premier League with 16 clubs, Division 1 also with 16 teams and Division 2 which is split into teams from 5 regions. (Northern Region, North Eastern region, Central East Region, Bangkok Region and Southern Region). Each year the bottom 3 clubs in the Premier League are relegated to Division 1 and the top 3 teams in Division 1 are promoted to the Premier League. In Division 2, the winning teams from each of the regions form a mini-league playing both home and away matches and the top 3 teams are promoted to Division 1 whilst the bottom 3 teams from Division 1 are relegated to Division 2. This somewhat complicated system is the reason why some of the regions in Division 2 may have more teams than the other regions.