Tens of thousands of Manchester City fans have been left in limbo after a statement issued on behalf of club owner and Thai Billionaire, Thaksin Shinawatra, suggested the fans were to be replaced this summer.
The statement, issued to the three major supporters clubs read, “Though Dr. Shinawatra appreciates the passion and support of a small minority, the position of Manchester City fans as a whole is to be reviewed in full at the end of the season.”
A senior source at the club conceded that, “Thaksin feels the City fans started the season extremely well, but after Christmas felt they just weren’t pulling their weight any longer. He thinks he can find better fans to replace them.”
The source went on to concede that Dr Shinawatra has a number of other “personal” reservations about a large proportion of City fans he sees as “badly-dressed, oafish, and too ugly to be permitted to breed.”
Indeed, it is rumored that Dr Shinawatra first became attracted to buying the club because of its largely impoverished working class support base – mirroring the support base he enjoyed politically in Thailand. Insiders now say, however, that the Chairman has become disgruntled with City fans, who he accuses of “false poverty”, whereby a large percentage will line dole queues but still drive sports cars and subscribe to premium Sky Television packages.
Shinawatra is also reported to be privately “sick to the back teeth” of fans constantly singing terrace favourite, Blue Moon, which he sees as “repetitive, tuneless, and de-motivational”. He is, however, said to have been hugely impressed by the singing of Rangers fans last Wednesday before their team’s Uefa Cup Final in Manchester. Their signature tune “Simply the Best” by Tina Turner, as well as their anti-Celtic favourite, “The famine’s over, why don’t you go home?”, are said to have particularly entertained the City chairman.
It is thought Shinawatra has even privately set aides the task of recruiting new City fans with a similar level of passion to these Rangers fans as well as those captured on CCTV in the hours immediately following the Glasgow club’s defeat in Wednesday’s European final.
Our club source went on to reveal that, in a more politically-motivated move, Shinawatra, who allegedly presided over the extrajudicial killings of 2,500 Thais in one three-month period at the start of 2003 during the notorious “war on drugs”, plans to replace the club’s motto, “Superbia in Praelia” (Pride in Battle), with “If you sell drugs, I’ll have you F**cking killed you motherf**cker”.
City fans, for their part, are said to have been left shell-shocked by the planned changes. One fan told me he could not have ever imagined that a club who averaged 30,000 attendances while the club was playing in the 3rd tier of English football could ever contemplate sacking those incredibly patient, loyal fans.
