Fantastic article in the Independent about the rebrand...

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foot ... 65781.html

First journalist i've seen to actually report about how the Cardiff fans feel who haven't accepted the rebrand.

Hopefully, when we're on Sky against Man City in a weeks time with red shirts scattered through our stadium, at least some outsiders will have read this and realise that not all our fans have lied down and accepted the rebrand. There are still some who are willing to fight for our identity, and to who it actually matters.

Because to most outsiders our club must seem like a bit of a joke to be honest, in fact I know it does.




Vincent Tan is loved by his Malaysian employees - but Cardiff fans are not so sure
Bluebirds supporters are suspicious of their club's owner, despite him having bankrolled promotion
IAN HERBERT THURSDAY 15 AUGUST 2013


Red or dead: Cardiff forced to ditch tradition with kit colour change
Moving on up: Five things Cardiff must do to survive in the Premier League next season
Cardiff owner pledges cash for transfers


There is an unmissable YouTube film which best illustrates the kind of devotion the Cardiff City billionaire owner Vincent Tan has come to expect from his vast number of Malaysian employees, who sell everything from pizzas and cars to mobile phones and gym memberships.

It is his 60th birthday dedication video: nearly five minutes of cheesy singing and dancing by the workers, using the elite honorific title "Tan Sri" and including such lines as "I love him, I love him, I love him, where Tan Sri goes I follow…" and (à la Frankie Valli) "We love you Tan Sri and if it's quite all right, adore you Tan Sri, every day and night…" This perhaps explains why Tan's relationship with the less adoring fans at Cardiff – the newly promoted Premier League club he bought for £11m before injecting an estimated £70m in loans – remains such an uncomfortable and precarious one.

The uneasiness was never more apparent than this summer, when Tan's acceptance speech for the honorary doctorate bestowed upon him by the University of South Wales drained the colour from City's ashen-faced press officer, who was an onlooker.

Tan, whose sense of entitlement having bought the club stretches way beyond his controversial decision to change their home strip from blue to red, needed no encouragement to warn supporters that they ran a risk by being repeatedly "disruptive", as he put their opposition to the kit.

"If too many fans show they are not welcoming then maybe they [should] have a new owner," he said at the university's Treforest campus. "I'm disappointed that after 51 years of not being in the top flight that there are still some fans who don't think we have done a good job.

"I may say maybe they are not grateful."

Tan also ruminated on Mohamed al Fayed's recent sale of Fulham – "He got his return, I think, at Fulham. The number is not huge, but I'm sure that he got his money back" – aware, no doubt, what a catastrophic outcome it would be if he walked away now, leaving Cardiff perched on a highwire.

The club's finance director, Doug Lee, told the South Wales Echo a year ago that the club would have been in administration "very, very quickly" had the Malaysians not taken over and that there were "very few business people in the world" who could support spending on the current scale, with losses at £1m a week. "I'm not saying they would, but if by some quirk of fate the Malaysians decided to pull out overnight we would be lurching from crisis to crisis within a very short time," Lee admitted.

The "ungrateful" fans are not going away. Membership of the Bluebirds United support group is near 10,000 and the anthem 'We're Cardiff City, we'll always be blue" will ring out when the home campaign begins against Manchester City a week on Sunday. Supporters even sang it at April's player of the year awards – drowning out Tan after he had explained why the treasured bluebird must be consigned to history. "The bluebird was frightened by much bigger and stronger symbols: by the wren and what-not," Tan said in his characteristically eccentric way. "You know I'm a new football fan so I don't know what the other symbols are."

The uneasy laughter that afternoon encapsulated how the Welsh capital just doesn't know what it thinks of this man – savouring the taste of the big time he has delivered after watching Swansea City revel in it for two years, yet knowing that the appropriation of their club is the price which has had to be paid. Tan can follow the course taken by Assem Allam, the owner of the newly named Hull City Tigers and rename the club "Cardiff City Dragons" if he so chooses. No one can stand in his way.

"Never say never," Tan said to that idea. "In two or three years' time I don't want to be eating my own words. That's why I always say 'never say never.' In running a business or any organisation it should be something that is evolving and alive – not something that is dead that you have to stick with."

It cannot be said that he has failed to deliver players for the new campaign, which starts for Cardiff with a visit to West Ham tomorrow. He was quick to promise £25m in the transfer market this summer and has actually gone £2m above that, sanctioning spending which has been only a few million less than Chelsea's. The club's transfer record has been broken three times – initially for 19-year-old striker Andrea Cornelius, from FC Copenhagen, then £8.5m for Tottenham Hotspur's 21-year-old centre-back Steven Caulker and £11m to Seville for the Chilean midfielder Gary Medel.

New recruit Steven Caulker

Just as significantly, Tan has come to a financial agreement with former owner Sam Hammam over £24m of outstanding debt owed to his Langston Corporation, settling with the Lebanese businessman by paying him £15m and making him a Cardiff life president. All of this is seemingly funded through loans, which stood at £37m in the accounts to the end of the 2012 financial year. Tan is yet to make good on his promise to convert them to equity. He has said he would do so when the Langston issue was resolved.

The three big signings have come at top-dollar prices, with some Danish observers believing that Cornelius will be a rookie in need of a year's acclimatisation, rather than a new Christian Benteke – though no one knows until the season starts. Cardiff director Steve Borley said in May: "We'd like to follow the Swansea model. If you get a dozen Michus, you wouldn't do too badly." The summer has proved that £2m goal machines don't grow on trees.

No one is sure how things will play out for the manager Malky Mackay if the season proves to be a struggle and there is something particularly unsettling about Tan's trenchant belief in luck. At Cardiff's 2009-10 play-off final against Blackpool at Wembley, days before the start of his reign, he sprinkled the four corners of the pitch with rice for good luck – to no avail – and it is the same belief system which has turned him on to Cardiff playing in red.

His lack of knowledge of football has been a source of entertainment so far. Mackay expressed amusement about the owner's suggestion that the side should "shoot more" and his incredulity, after a defeat to Peterborough, that a team at the bottom could beat you.

Promotion to the top flight requires a dose of optimism, of course. Tan displayed realism at the player of the year lunch by declaring that this season's aim was "to survive and not to be relegated". And if Cardiff do manage to establish themselves among the elite – their entitlement given such a large catchment area, their captain Craig Bellamy argued in his recent autobiography – there is no better man than Tan to capitalise financially.

He is hugely able entrepreneur. The punt he took on bringing McDonald's into Malaysia and on buying the loss-making social media site Friendster proves that much. He is also a hugely generous philanthropist – one of only a dozen billionaires the world over to have given away more than half of his fortune. Though Manchester United failed to float on the Singapore Stock Exchange last year, Tan feels that he might get his club away on the Malaysian equivalent.

"I look on it as a business," he told BBC Wales in February. "It's not like a hobby I put £100m into. If the fans welcome me and everybody welcomes me I can stay for a long time. But if I find they are rude maybe I will find a new buyer and go off."

Membership of BU nearing 10,000

My views on Tan are clear, that being said this is a good article from a journalist who has clearly done some in depth research.

Membership of BU nearing 10,000

Only 5% are against the rebrand.

A good read, but no revelations in there

Read it while I had my morning poo in work

Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum.....i smell the Envy of the Englishman.

Ok article but it says nothing we didn't already know, or has already been written!

Ok article but it says nothing we didn't already know, or has already been written!

Yes but its not directed soley at us, a good insight for someone who is non cardiff city

Membership of BU nearing 10,000

Probably meant 'hits' on their site

A reasonable article TBH and explains both Tan's self-belief and how some are still not happy despite the upturn in fortunes

Maybe never the twain shall meet but I think what he has achieved on the positive side is immense and would only become apparent if we were unlucky enough to lose him, as I'm not so sure we have local people with either the clout or the will to take us forward

Membership of BU nearing 10,000

Only 5% are against the rebrand.

I stopped going to see city when they changed to red I'm one of the 5 percent. i only bought a blue shirt but will not be turning up at ccfc stadium until 1 hamman has been hung from the grange and 2 we get our clubs identity back!!!

My views on Tan are clear, that being said this is a good article from a journalist who has clearly done some in depth research.

If he has done his research where did he get the 10k BU membership from? Not even the online petition got that many and a very large % of those who signed it are not members or associated in any way with BU.

I found some of the article a little disturbing especially the poking of fun at VT's honorary Malaysian title ''Tan Sri.' The actual words used were "elite honorific title " which is judge mental to the extreme. A lot of countries have honour systems and we have ours (the prefix Sir/Lord or even OBE/MBE) and it is extremely disrespectful to mock another countries whilst we still hold honours which relate to the "British Empire"

There is a small minority who want to spoil it for everyone else. We will always be blue at heart but firstly we need a club to support before we can be anything else. BU for all their 'fighting' (when will those opposed to the rebrand learn that is an awful word to use) will have no affect because they don't have enough support.

Inventing or exaggerating numbers by adopting without permission anyone who has signed a petition or sung will always be blue is not the way to gain support. They need to pull themselves together and become more acceptable or wish for what many of them want; CCFC to fail and get relegated.

My views on Tan are clear, that being said this is a good article from a journalist who has clearly done some in depth research.

If he has done his research where did he get the 10k BU membership from? Not even the online petition got that many and a very large % of those who signed it are not members or associated in any way with BU.

I found some of the article a little disturbing especially the poking of fun at VT's honorary Malaysian title ''Tan Sri.' The actual words used were "elite honorific title " which is judge mental to the extreme. A lot of countries have honour systems and we have ours (the prefix Sir/Lord or even OBE/MBE) and it is extremely disrespectful to mock another countries whilst we still hold honours which relate to the "British Empire"

There is a small minority who want to spoil it for everyone else. We will always be blue at heart but firstly we need a club to support before we can be anything else. BU for all their 'fighting' (when will those opposed to the rebrand learn that is an awful word to use) will have no affect because they don't have enough support.

Inventing or exaggerating numbers by adopting without permission anyone who has signed a petition or sung will always be blue is not the way to gain support. They need to pull themselves together and become more acceptable or wish for what many of them want; CCFC to fail and get relegated.

Yeah, he did make VT out to be a bit dictator like, good point, the did also mention his philanthropy as well though

BU.10,000 membership I will be intrigued to see the numbers on the MARCH.

BU.10,000 membership I will be intrigued to see the numbers on the MARCH.

Few hundred....

at least some outsiders will have read this and realise that not all our fans have lied down and accepted the rebrand. There are still some who are willing to fight for our identity, and to who it actually matters.

Even when a article is written promoting a side of a story that possibly hasn't reached the same masses as the other side has, you have managed to throw an insult towards a fellow supporter.

Fans can think that there has always been harmonious unity amongst our supporters and a split and divide has only been caused by Tan's actions, but the fact is there has always been internal issues amongst our fan base,from several different areas.
Tan's Actions may have fuelled a fire but the ignition was always there.

at least some outsiders will have read this and realise that not all our fans have lied down and accepted the rebrand. There are still some who are willing to fight for our identity, and to who it actually matters.

Even when a article is written promoting a side of a story that possibly hasn't reached the same masses as the other side has, you have managed to throw an insult towards a fellow supporter.

Fans can think that there has always been harmonious unity amongst our supporters and a split and divide has only been caused by Tan's actions, but the fact is there has always been internal issues amongst our fan base,from several different areas.
Tan's Actions may have fuelled a fire but the ignition was always there.

A very good point,we had the pro Sam faction and the anti Sam faction,that festered on for a few years and got very heated on many occasions,even then some fans decided not to go down the City anymore due to Sams presence,so its nothing new this infighting I am afraid,Ridsdale split the fan base as well.There was even fighting amonst home supporters down the City in the 70,s.Valley boys/Barry Boys against Cardiff etc Different subject,same old Cardiff City.

My views on Tan are clear, that being said this is a good article from a journalist who has clearly done some in depth research.

If he has done his research where did he get the 10k BU membership from? Not even the online petition got that many and a very large % of those who signed it are not members or associated in any way with BU.

I found some of the article a little disturbing especially the poking of fun at VT's honorary Malaysian title ''Tan Sri.' The actual words used were "elite honorific title " which is judge mental to the extreme. A lot of countries have honour systems and we have ours (the prefix Sir/Lord or even OBE/MBE) and it is extremely disrespectful to mock another countries whilst we still hold honours which relate to the "British Empire"

There is a small minority who want to spoil it for everyone else. We will always be blue at heart but firstly we need a club to support before we can be anything else. BU for all their 'fighting' (when will those opposed to the rebrand learn that is an awful word to use) will have no affect because they don't have enough support.

Inventing or exaggerating numbers by adopting without permission anyone who has signed a petition or sung will always be blue is not the way to gain support. They need to pull themselves together and become more acceptable or wish for what many of them want; CCFC to fail and get relegated.

Yeah, he did make VT out to be a bit dictator like, good point, the did also mention his philanthropy as well though

He is a dictator. The rebrand choice was simple, change historic colours to red and ill invest further, don't and I won't invest any further and you can live with the consequences. No compromise whatsoever or bargaining whatsoever. There's no doubt he's done some excellent things for us since the rebrand was implemented and no one can doubt the impact of the charity donations. However the whole rebrand and the way it was implemented, for me and many others id imagine does leave a sour taste in the mouth, has dampened the joy of promotion and make VT look like a dictator.

My views on Tan are clear, that being said this is a good article from a journalist who has clearly done some in depth research.

If he has done his research where did he get the 10k BU membership from? Not even the online petition got that many and a very large % of those who signed it are not members or associated in any way with BU.

I found some of the article a little disturbing especially the poking of fun at VT's honorary Malaysian title ''Tan Sri.' The actual words used were "elite honorific title " which is judge mental to the extreme. A lot of countries have honour systems and we have ours (the prefix Sir/Lord or even OBE/MBE) and it is extremely disrespectful to mock another countries whilst we still hold honours which relate to the "British Empire"

There is a small minority who want to spoil it for everyone else. We will always be blue at heart but firstly we need a club to support before we can be anything else. BU for all their 'fighting' (when will those opposed to the rebrand learn that is an awful word to use) will have no affect because they don't have enough support.

Inventing or exaggerating numbers by adopting without permission anyone who has signed a petition or sung will always be blue is not the way to gain support. They need to pull themselves together and become more acceptable or wish for what many of them want; CCFC to fail and get relegated.

Yeah, he did make VT out to be a bit dictator like, good point, the did also mention his philanthropy as well though

He is a dictator. The rebrand choice was simple, change historic colours to red and ill invest further, don't and I won't invest any further and you can live with the consequences. No compromise whatsoever or bargaining whatsoever. There's no doubt he's done some excellent things for us since the rebrand was implemented and no one can doubt the impact of the charity donations. However the whole rebrand and the way it was implemented, for me and many others id imagine does leave a sour taste in the mouth, has dampened the joy of promotion and make VT look like a dictator.

You're making it up as you go along Stavross.Are you an apprentice to Chuckles by any chance?

"He has dampened the Joy of Promotion"






Very sad....

BU.10,000 membership I will be intrigued to see the numbers on the MARCH.

As I said, I think they (BU) are so desperate now that they have counted the number of 'hits' on their site as being the number of members!

Despite accusations, I would NEVER be against a return to blue but cannot support this march or the 'flexible' values of certain factions within BU, which is a shame as I believe Sian started it with all the best intentions

Hopefully it remains peaceful and no insults are thrown back and forth.

My views on Tan are clear, that being said this is a good article from a journalist who has clearly done some in depth research.

If he has done his research where did he get the 10k BU membership from? Not even the online petition got that many and a very large % of those who signed it are not members or associated in any way with BU.

I found some of the article a little disturbing especially the poking of fun at VT's honorary Malaysian title ''Tan Sri.' The actual words used were "elite honorific title " which is judge mental to the extreme. A lot of countries have honour systems and we have ours (the prefix Sir/Lord or even OBE/MBE) and it is extremely disrespectful to mock another countries whilst we still hold honours which relate to the "British Empire"

There is a small minority who want to spoil it for everyone else. We will always be blue at heart but firstly we need a club to support before we can be anything else. BU for all their 'fighting' (when will those opposed to the rebrand learn that is an awful word to use) will have no affect because they don't have enough support.

Inventing or exaggerating numbers by adopting without permission anyone who has signed a petition or sung will always be blue is not the way to gain support. They need to pull themselves together and become more acceptable or wish for what many of them want; CCFC to fail and get relegated.

Yeah, he did make VT out to be a bit dictator like, good point, the did also mention his philanthropy as well though

He is a dictator. The rebrand choice was simple, change historic colours to red and ill invest further, don't and I won't invest any further and you can live with the consequences. No compromise whatsoever or bargaining whatsoever. There's no doubt he's done some excellent things for us since the rebrand was implemented and no one can doubt the impact of the charity donations. However the whole rebrand and the way it was implemented, for me and many others id imagine does leave a sour taste in the mouth, has dampened the joy of promotion and make VT look like a dictator.

You're making it up as you go along Stavross.Are you an apprentice to Chuckles by any chance?

What have I made up?

What was he saying about the term 'City?' Everyone knows Cardiff is a City so why do they have to be called City?

The answer Mr Tan is they are because they have been since they started, and changing it now would just look stupid and embarrassing like Hull.

Yes, we are all very grateful you have given us a PL team but don't try and change the club history and tradition.

Membership of BU nearing 10,000

Bu membership numbers are irrelevant . How many fans would prefer to play in blue with a proper club crest

What was he saying about the term 'City?' Everyone knows Cardiff is a City so why do they have to be called City?

The answer Mr Tan is they are because they have been since they started, and changing it now would just look stupid and embarrassing like Hull.

Yes, we are all very grateful you have given us a PL team but don't try and change the club history and tradition.

I really need to find out how Tan has the ability to change history!

What was he saying about the term 'City?' Everyone knows Cardiff is a City so why do they have to be called City?

The answer Mr Tan is they are because they have been since they started, and changing it now would just look stupid and embarrassing like Hull.

Yes, we are all very grateful you have given us a PL team but don't try and change the club history and tradition.

I really need to find out how Tan has the ability to change history!

Easy ............ Loads & loads of money.

City fans that wear red are no better and worse than fans that boycott games. The BU need to accept that or it will get nowhere.

Membership of BU nearing 10,000

Only 5% are against the rebrand.

That's impressive, if they all march for the Man City game, that will send a message out.

"He has dampened the Joy of Promotion"






Very sad....

Your avatar looks like it could well be dampened at times.

"He has dampened the Joy of Promotion"






Very sad....

Your avatar looks like it could well be dampened at times.

BEAUTIFUL EH!!!!