เศรษฐศาสตร์การเมืองว่าด้วยสโมสรกีฬาฟุตบอลในจังหวัดเชียงใหม่

Abstract

This independent research about “Political Economy of Football Club in Chiang Mai Province” studies about the correlation between football clubs and politics. Since the popularity of having a career as footballer prevails all over Thailand, including Chiang Mai, it can be observed that many investors and politicians have raised their interest in investing and managing in football businesses in order that they can catch up with the trendy industry, connect to the mass society, and increase their political stronghold. Therefore, this research aims to study about the current and overall problems in Chiang Mai football industry. After learning the overall problems, they are then derived into specific factors. Those factors would then be studied to find out the correlation and influence between them and the football industry. Moreover, this research aims to study about a football club’s influencing external factors such as economy, society, politics, cultures, as well as policies that support or regulate a professional football club by using political economy dimensions to scrutinize. This research uses qualitative method to study about the influencing factors, overall problems, and policy management to improve Chiang Mai Football Club’s situations. Data collection in this research is done in two ways which are studying from empirical studies and having in-depth interviews. The results of the study have been found that the overall problems of Chiang Mai Football Clubs are that after the have been promoted to the highest division, the club couldn’t promptly adjust their team structure to be suitable for the highest division. This ranges from the capabilities of the coaches, partner issues, to the ability of the players. In the part of studying about the financial developments needed to improve club’s power and overall industry, it has been found that most of the clubs still largely rely on the income from groups of investors and sponsors. Apart from those, in studying about the current policies, it has been found that most of the policies had been issued by House of Thai Football and Sports Authority of Thailand. Meanwhile, the last part this research studies are the influencing external factors that affect Chiang Mai Football Clubs, which are economy, society, politics, cultures, and has found that each of the factors highly influences the development of Chiang Mai Football Clubs because if any factor is lacked or not well connected, such situation could hinder the growth of the club and eventually cause failures in the management.