By Thai Newsroom Reporters
A SUM OF 1.3 BILLION baht in initial budget was today (May 12) approved by the Bhumjaithai-led government for Thailand to buy broadcasting rights for World Cup 2026 football games from North America during a five-and-a-half-weeks period.
The Bhumjaithai-led cabinet of ministers has approved the 1.3 billion baht initial government fund for the World Cup 2026 football tournament to be jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada where a total of 48 national teams will play a total of 104 matches during June 12 and July 20 and instructed the National Broadcasting & Telecommunications Commission and Public Relations Department to find potential private sponsors.
The broadcasting rights for the World Cup 2026 from those host countries are roughly expected to cost up to two billion baht, compared to some 1.4 billion baht charged for the World Cup 2022 tournament in Qatar.
The NBTC had provided some 600 million baht in budget out of the agency’s funding originally earmarked for its broadcasting and telecommunications research and development plans to buy the broadcasting rights for the previous World Cup games.
The higher price of the broadcasting rights this year is primarily attributed to a notable phenomenon in which the total of competing teams has risen from 32 to 48, thus increasing the total of the matches from 64 to 104.
Without elaborating, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has earlier remarked that he would “proudly” bow to criticism from any of his critics over varied issues probably including the use of the taxpayer’s money to buy the broadcasting rights for all the people to view the World Cup football games live on free TV channels throughout the country and that previous governments had done the same over the last decades only to please international football fans among the Thais.
Newin Chidchob, the de facto boss of the Bhumjaithai, core of the current coalition government, is not only known as owner of Buriram United, the Thai League 1 champions for 2025/2026 season, but a huge fan of Barcelona in Spain’s La Liga and would almost certainly root for Spain. Ranking among the world’s dozen favourite sides, the Spaniards last won the World Cup in 2010.
A dozen other prominent politicians are also known as owners of Thai League football clubs including Ratchaburi owned by Ratchaburi provincial administrative head Vivat Nitikanchana, Ayutthaya United by Tourism & Sports Minister Surasak Pancharoenworakul, PT Prachuap by former agriculture minister Chalermchai Sri-on, Sukhothai by former justice minister Somsak Thepsuthin and Rayong by former deputy public health minister Sathit Pitutecha, among others.
De facto Pheu Thai boss/former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra who has been just released on parole used to own Manchester City, an English Premier League side, in 2007 and sold the highly successful club to Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi the following year.
CAPTIONS:
Top – Argentina’s Lionel Messi lifts the World Cup trophy after his side’s win over France in the 2022 World Cup final at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar on Dec. 18, 2022. File photo: AP/Martin Meissner and published by CNA
Front Page – The FIFA World Cup Trophy is displayed during the playoff draw in Zurich, Switzerland, in November. Photo – AP/Claudio Thoma/Keystone and published by CNN
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