Mysterious transfer of soccer club

by Kyaw Kha
Friday, 02 October 2009 15:53

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – In a mysterious move, the owner and sponsor of the Delta United Football Club, millionaire Zaw Zaw has transferred ownership of the club to a company, saying he is following the regulation of the Myanmar Football Federation (MFF)’s rule of restricting its chairman from owning a private club.

Zaw Zaw, who is also the current chairman of the MFF and has reportedly invested an estimated of over Kyat 500 million (US $ 460,000 approximately), on Monday announced handing over of his ownership to the “Premier Coffee Company” during a press conference.

“He [Zaw Zaw] announced that in keeping with the FIFA rule he is handing over the club to Premier Coffee Company. Besides, he said, he would not demand any dividend or to be paid back for his investment of Kyat 500 million in the club,” Soe Moe, Public Relations In-charge of the MFF, told Mizzima.

Zaw Zaw, during the ceremony, held at Rangoon’s popular Trader’s Hotel, signed the transfer document in the presence of the Club’s patron Soe Han Lin, CEO Khin Maung Kyaing and Premier Coffee Company’s Managing Director Tun Yin and Director Dr. Htin Kyaw. The ceremony was also attended by several local journalists.

An official at Zaw Zaw’s Max Myanmar Company said, he is still not clear about the reason behind the transfer of the club, in which Zaw Zaw had invested a fortune.

During the transfer ceremony, Zaw Zaw told reporters that the Delta United, which was set-up to represent the Irrawaddy delta division of Southern Burma, as the name suggests, it should be owned and run by the people of the delta.

On the internet website of the club, the official sponsor of the club is still mentioned as Max Cement, a subsidiary company of Max Myanmar Group of Companies.

The Premier Coffee Company, which operates several business ventures including the popular Diamond Star flour mill, is set to reconstitute the Club’s Management Board on October 3.

Since late 2008, several of the Burmese junta’s business cronies including Zaw Zaw and business tycoon Tayza floated football clubs and invested a fortune in buying, training, and paying players as well as in maintaining regular club tournaments and arranging foreign tours to Thailand.

Zaw Zaw, who is close to the ruling junta, as the Chairman of the MFF was successful in launching the Myanmar National League, which for the first in 2009 organised a tournament and a league.

Eight newly created football clubs, owned respectively by business tycoons, are currently fighting for ranks in the first ever MNL league. The Yadanabon FC, owned by Dr. Sai Sam Htun, who also owned Loi Hein Co. Ltd, emerged as the champion of the first MNL tournament, held during May-June this year.

The Delta United, with four wins and two draws, is currently leading the league with 14 points, one point ahead of the MNL tournament Champion Yadanabon FC.

The Max Myanmar Company was set up in 1993 and is involved in cars, step-up voltage stabilizers, heavy machinery imports, transportation, construction, hotel and tourism and gems and jewellery trading. In 2005, the company also expanded its business into rubber plantation.