Thailand going World Cup crazy

I am sure it is like this all over the world except for the country that I come from and our neighbors to the north. For the rest of the world, this is very big news and something that everyone wants to be involved in. In Thailand I wouldn't say that everyone actually loves football but they do love a reason to party and it seems as though almost every place that has a screen is going out of their way to accommodate those customers who are out partying and drinking nearly every night.

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It doesn't have to be any particular bar because everyone is showing it. It is almost annoyingly omnipresent. You can't really go anywhere without them having the game on in the back but seeing as how the times of play are very predictable, if you are trying to avoid the noise that is easy enough to sort out.

I am reminded about a story that a friend of mine who owns a sportsbar of sorts told me about a level of corruption that happened in his words, 8 years ago during the world cup when the Thai government decided to make up a broadcast law and licensing system that was in no way affiliated with FIFA, it was just a way for the authorities to yet again, shake down the population for money.

He told me that the local police were selling "permits" to broadcast the World Cup games to an audience in their establishments. These stickers will meant to look official and they did a decent job with this but due to the spelling errors in the small print it was evident that this was in no way some sort of broadcast agreement with whoever it is that has the rights to it . The police simply knew that bars would get a lot more customers during the once-every-four-years event and it was another opportunity to shake the people down for bribes, which is exactly what this veiled "permit" system was.

The police would drive around and literally bust any business that was playing the games and shut them down if they didn't have a permit. They would of course offer to sell them a permit and the timing of their raids were always during a very popular game. Some of the bars, I've been told, had the patrons riot as a result. While I wish harm to no one, it makes me smile to think that the customers were not having any of the corruption and were willing to physically force a group of police off the premises if necessary. In the stories I heard about this happening, the police would leave rather than escalate the situation but then they would come back the next day and again threaten the owner with closure. Eventually everyone bought these "broadcast permits" even though they were completely made up.

Thailand police have done this with "music permits" and "computer permits" in the past as well. Corruption is fun!

I'm sure in the west there are actual permits for this sort of thing as well but it is just funny to me that over here it is just a homemade sticker riddled with spelling errors.

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The World Cup doesn't interest me a great deal, but I will go to them every now and then for the earlier games. I prefer a bar where it is just on in the background and isn't too loud so that I can still talk to my friends. If something exciting happens we will hear the shouts of the other patrons and then of course there will be dozens of replays so I'm not going to really miss anything.

I've been told that all of the games are eventually going to be "late" games which is a relative term depending on what part of the world you are in. This could be problematic for Thailand because that will mean the games start at 2am here and of course the drunk-driving that follows will probably be a bit chaotic. This is nothing new in Thailand though.

I can tell you what the favorite team is of the average Thai fan is: England and whoever is winning at the time.