Published on October 27, 2005

[SOCCER] The long-running sage over the new Thailand Premier League has finally ended with the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) finally releasing the official regulations for the upcoming season yesterday. The 2005-2006 season will start with 12 clubs. The bottom two clubs in the table at the end of the first season shall be relegated to Division One and will be replaced by the champions and runners-up from Division One and the Provincial League for the next two seasons.

For the 2006-2007 season, 14 teams will take part and then in the 2007-2008 season a total of 16 clubs will be involved.

Each club will play two league matches home and away against each other club each season. It will be the first time that each team will play in their own stadium.

The starting 12 clubs for this season are Thai-Honda, Osotspa, Provincial Electricity Authority, Bangkok University, Bangkok Bank, BEC-Tero Sasana, Port Authority of Thailand, Krungthai Bank, Royal Thai Army, Chon Buri, Suphan Buri and defending champions the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly.

The champions will receive Bt10 million in prize money with the runners-up, the third place and the fourth placed teams receiving Bt3 million, Bt2 million and Bt1 million respectively.

For seasonal awards, there will be special prizes for best player of the year, manager of the year, young player of the year, fair play awards, golden boot and highest scoring team of the year. Each prize is worth Bt100,000.

Also, each match winner will receive Bt15,000 and the other monthly award will comprise a total of Bt420,000 in prize money.

The competition will be divided into two legs. The first leg starts on December 16 and ends on March 12, 2006. The second leg continues on March 24 and the season will end on June 10 or 11, before the World Cup begins.

Meanwhile, Thai coach Chanvit Polchivin’s young charges performed well in their 2-0 victory over Japan’s under-20 team yesterday in the opening match of the Agribank Cup in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The Thai head coach fielded his best 11 players against the young Japanese side, who also sent along their full squad to check their readiness before the Under-20 World Championship kicks off.

But the Japanese defence was broken only eight minutes into the game by Thai midfielder Pichitpong Cheuchiew.

The young Japanese tried to get back into the game but could not find any chances before the first half ended at 1-0 in favour of Thailand.

Both sides started the second half playing an open-game style, but finally Thailand, who seemed to have more opportunities, sealed victory in the 81st minute with a goal from talented striker Teerathep “Leesaw” Winothai.

Thailand will play the Vietnam under-23 team tomorrow at 6pm, while the earlier match at 4pm will be between the Japanese under-20 team and Malaysia’s under-23 side.

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