Politics or moeny visa debate

Have we learned anything new since the visa decision was implemented last Friday?

As things stand, it could be as simple as the official UK statement - that the pair were denied entry because they had received jail sentences. Or we will have to keep guessing, because the visa move had something to do with what the British authorities are reluctant to talk about.

Our newsroom has received a number of e-mails guiding us toward, well, what caused us Thais collective national pain in the first place - Thaksin's money trails. A general belief seems to be that either Thaksin has upset and embarrassed England by mounting political activities against his opponents from its soil, or he has underestimated London's standards on financial dealings or transactions.

One e-mail in particular pointed to a remarkable shift in the attitude of the man who brokered Thaksin's purchase of the Manchester City Football Club. Keith Harris, the executive chairman of Seymour Pierce Investment Bank, has turned from a staunch defender of Thaksin into an apparent doubter.

"It's rather sad at the moment with Thaksin's visa being revoked," he was quoted by the Guardian website as saying, while commenting on the sometimes disastrous trend of foreigners buying up British soccer clubs. "I don't think at that time I could have done any more investigation."

How much can we read into the second sentence? All we know is that Thaksin bought MCFC with money he had never declared with Thai authorities while he was in power, but money Harris strongly insisted last year was legitimate and clean.

"The charges against him are being prosecuted by an unelected military regime and we all know they are politically motivated," he told BBC Radio Five Live back then. "We have done a lot of research. We are absolutely satisfied and the Thai central bank gave their blessing for the transfer of monies to effect the takeover and that money has been in my client's bank account for some time now."

If Thaksin's MCFC purchase was intriguing, his sale of the club at double the price he paid to Arab billionaires is probably more so. (Not least because Thaksin let slip on one occasion just days after his MCFC takeover that he could soon sell the club at a big gain.)

So, is the MCFC-Thaksin-Abu Dhabi saga something similar to the Shin Corp-Thaksin-Temasek deal - nice and clean on the surface but with untold landmines underneath? Only time will tell.