BANGKOK - THAILAND'S election battle spilled onto the football pitch on Wednesday as the Democrat Party unveiled plans for Premier League club Everton to coach young Thai players.

The announcement came just days after Manchester City - owned by the Democrats' archrival, ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra - signed three Thai players and announced similar plans to open academies across the soccer-mad kingdom which goes to the polls on Dec 23.

Bangkok governor and deputy Democrat leader Apirak Kosayodhin last week signed an agreement with Everton for its players and coaches to help with training at the Bangkok Football Academy, a municipal official said.

Top Thai player Kiatisuk Senamuang, head of the Bangkok Football Academy, will train up to 40 young teenagers in April to prepare them for coaching by Everton, a Bangkok city official said.

The academy was set up this year and trained about 1,000 teenagers last April during the main school holiday.

Mr Thaksin was toppled by the military in a bloodless coup last year, and despite the army's efforts to prevent media from reporting on him, his takeover of Man City has kept his name in the headlines in this football-mad country.

The Bangkok Post in an editorial last week accused Thaksin, who now lives in England, of deliberately timing the Man City signings ahead of next month's elections to generate support for candidates seen as proxies of his now disbanded Thai Rak Thai party.

Deputy Bangkok governor Buddhipong Punnakanta insisted that the Democrat Party was not trying to score political points against Thaksin with the Everton deal.

'This isn't about counter-attack. Our bid to build ties with the City of Liverpool coincided with the Man City deal,' he told the Nation newspaper. -- AFP

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