World Cup for Free Military Seeks to ‘Return Happiness’

A Thai shopper watches a soccer match on a flat-panel television at a shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand Wednesday, June 11, 2014. (AP / Sakchai Lalit)

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BANGKOK -Thailand’s military junta, which promised to “return happiness to the people” after last month’s coup, asked regulatory officials on Wednesday to find a way to allow the country’s many soccer fans to watch the entire World Cup for free.

The junta contacted the chairman of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, the country’s broadcast regulator, and asked him “to seek ways to return happiness to the people through viewing all of the 64 World Cup matches on free-to-air channels,” NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tanthasit told a news conference.

Earlier Wednesday, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the company holding the broadcast rights could restrict more than half of the 64 matches to satellite and cable TV. The rights holder, RS International Broadcasting and Sport Management Plc., planned to allow just 22 games to be broadcast for free.