Jess Fink นักข่าว FoxSport ชื่นชม แฟนบอลไทยต่อสู้กับอำนาจของมิสเตอร์มะกุดี

When I started writing for Fox Sports Asia (known in a previous incarnation as ESPN STAR Sports) with a free rein to write about Asian football, it was May 2009 and Afshin Ghotbi, the great Iranian-American coach and disciple of Guus Hiddink, was preparing to take the Islamic Republic of Iran into North Korea to attempt to qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

It was an extraordinary story, especially as for years the California-raised Ghotbi couldn't even put his feet on Iranian soil, having escaped the country in 1979.

We'd had coffee in Sydney not long earlier, with Ghotbi scouting for a possible club job in Australia.

Now, having led Persepolis to the Iranian domestic championship, he was coaching Team Melli and leading them on one of the most difficult assignments in world football: winning away in Pyongyang. The match ended in a 0-0 draw and, in the end, Iran couldn't quite gยิ้ม.

North Korea did and proceeded to get thumped 7-0 by Portugal in Cape Town.

Over 250 odd columns later, Asian football remains a mine of extraordinary football stories. This is my last contribution to this website and I'd like to say a few things before I sign off.

As an opinion writer for FOX, I have been privileged to attend two Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Awards in Kuala Lumpur, to have covered the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup and 2010 FIFA World Cup, to have appeared on Thai and Malaysian TV, and to have met and interviewed controversial former AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam before his downfall.

I have watched the rise of India and the decline of Indonesia. I have seen Australia qualify for three World Cups in a row after three decades of shooting themselves in the foot. I have recoiled at the treatment of the Hubail brothers after pro-democracy protests in Bahrain. I have witnessed the startling power shift from Japan and South Korea to Qatar and the Middle East. And, most satisfyingly of all, I have looked on with pride as the might of fan power in Thailand has challenged the hegemony of entrenched political interests.

The Worawi Makudi saga has a long way to run yet but it was a great privilege to have worked with people inside and outside Thailand in calling him to account for aspects of his record and getting so far as to prompt a FIFA Ethics Committee investigation in Zurich.

Perhaps, given the irresistible clamour for change in Thailand, the coming months will witness the end of the Makudi era. FOX, I can say without hubris, has led the way in standing up for the voiceless masses in Thai football.

There's more money than ever pouring into the Asian game but what it still lacks is a community of journalists and columnists who are free to speak their mind without fear of retribution or victimisation.

Football in the region still has a long way to go to match the relative press freedoms of England, South America and mainland Europe.

A healthy sport is one where criticism is not just published but actively encouraged.

Only with open criticism and healthy debate can the Asian game truly grow. It's doing that, of course. But it can grow even faster when the same scrutiny journalists apply to the action on the pitch is also extended to the people running the game.

I'd like to extend a big thank you to Ian Griffiths, formerly of Fox who originally commissioned me back in June 2009, and the editors who worked closely with me over the years - especially Dez Corkhill, Suhas Bhat, Kelvin Tan, Noah Tan, Gabriel Tan and Marcus Chhan.

But, most of all, I'd like to express gratitudยิ้มaders who have taken the time to either comment on, share or distribute by whatever means the columns that have appeared on this website.

The fans are the lifeblood of this sport. Without them, football is nothing. That's something the nabobs at the AFC and those individuals controlling the 46 national associations that make up this unwieldy but endlessly fascinating confederation would do well to remember.

They don't serve themselves. They serve us.

Keeping fighting the good fight.

Credit : http://www.foxsportsasia.com/editorial/news/detail/item996269/
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