Myanmar Utd.? Junta Leader Weighed Buying Famous Soccer Club

The leader of Myanmar's military junta, Than Shwe, considered making a $1 billion-bid to buy English soccer club Manchester United, one of the the world's most recognizable, while his government was accused of responding too slowly to the disaster left by a cyclone, according to the Guardian.

Shwe was urged to place a bid on United, a team he follows, by his grandson, according to a cable from the U.S. embassy in Rangoon sent in June 2009, published by WikiLeaks. The cable says that the regime was using football to distract its population from political and economic problems.

The country was facing rising anger from the United Nations for its "unacceptably slow" response to cyclone Nargis which struck in May 2008 and killed 140,000. The Burmese junta had been accused of blocking international aid supplies, the Guardian reports.

Shwe ultimately decided that making the bid might "look bad," but the revelation that the regime was even considering it was deemed likely to draw more attention to the regime's cruelty. The price of the bid - $1 billion - was the same as the U.N. estimate as what was needed in urgent aid for food, housing and agriculture for three years following Nargis.

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The regime is increasingly exporting its oil and gas reserves. Instead of making the bid on United, Shwe ordered the creation of a new multimillion dollar national football leage.

"One well-connected source reports that the grandson wanted Than Shwe to offer $1bn for Manchester United," said the cable to Washington. "The senior general thought that sort of expenditure could look bad, so he opted to create for Burma (Myanmar) a league of its own."