' The Vincent Tan Circus - The Times today '

Truely national recognition of the circus show that is Cardiff City FC - Oliver Kay column in The Times today

Try the link but you usually need an online subscription to The Times to read the complete article.

http://thetim.es/1aw1fuh
.
There is just one problem with Tan’s contribution to Cardiff. This supposedly altruistic venture has taken the look of an ego trip.

Love the bit bit where Tan advises Malky we should take more shots at goal.....Says it all.

Love the bit bit where Tan advises Malky we should take more shots at goal.....Says it all.

It wont open the link, can anyone please copy/paste it

Annis buy the paper lol

Here it is...

" ' Cardiff's Angel Appears At Risk Of A Fall '

' The Times '

Vincent Tan considers himself an angel. Not in the celestial sense, perhaps, but, when it comes to the use of his wealth. “If you have surplus money,” he told a conference in Kuala Lumpur 12 months ago, “you should invest and be an angel as this will create employment and give our young people a chance.”

Sponsoring young entrepreneurs in his native Malaysia is not Tan’s only angelic pursuit. According to those close to him, he regards his investment in Cardiff City in similar terms. He looks out on the home crowd on a matchday, king of all that he surveys, and feels a great sense of warmth at having given them top-flight football for the first time in more than half a century. He feels as if he has managed, to borrow an endearing Bill Shankly quote, to “make the people happy”.
There is just one problem with Tan’s contribution to Cardiff. This supposedly altruistic venture has taken the look of an ego trip. Sections of the club’s support have begun to take the rough with the smooth where his ownership is concerned, but it has become clear in the past week, as if it was not clear before, that his unpopular “rebranding” of the club, with the kit colour changed from blue to red, is symptomatic of a power trip in which football expertise, like tradition, is regarded as expendable.
Even by the chaotic standards of certain clubs in 21st-century football, what has happened at Cardiff this week is bizarre: an unseemly row between players and management about a bonus structure; the unexplained dismissal of Iain Moody, the head of recruitment; the destabilisation of Malky Mackay, the manager who led the club to the Barclays Premier League; the mysterious promotion of Alisher Apsalyamov, the 23-year-old Kazakh who has gone from odd-job man, helping out with painting one of the stands, to being confirmed yesterday as acting head of recruitment in place of Moody.
Little is known of Apsalyamov beyond the fact that he has no previous experience in professional football and that he is a friend of U-Juin, Tan’s son. Still, wheeling and dealing in the transfer market? Any fool can do that on Football Manager. How hard can it be? What could possibly go wrong?


Here is what could wrong. It could totally destabilise the club. In fact, it already has. Mackay is known to have been upset and bewildered by this week’s events, but perhaps that was the idea, since there have been strong rumours that the board wanted him to resign. Simon Lim, the chief executive, was asked on Wednesday whether it was true that Mackay had been asked for his resignation. “No comment,” he said, rather disconcertingly.

By last night Cardiff were projecting a united front, with Tan saying in a statement that he had “every faith in Malky and his team to lead us through the challenges of the Premier League. I have supported him in the past and will do so in the future for many years to come.”
Let us hope that is the case, for Cardiff’s sake. No matter how Tan might rank the various factors that have taken the club to the Premier League – himself first, the “lucky” red shirts second, you suspect – most rational observers would look at the job that Mackay has done in South Wales and suggest that he is their prized asset. Or an inspired appointment, if Tan and friends board wish to view it in different terms.
There have been suggestions from inside the club for some time that Tan dislikes the way the Cardiff supporters – and indeed the media – fete Mackay for the team’s success while demonising the owner over the rebranding controversy.
So in the interests of balance, let us state that, since his Malaysian consortium took control of the club in 2010, Tan has invested £125 million, including £70 million of loans that he has said will be converted into equity, as Cardiff have become a debt-free, financially stable Premier League club. He helped finance a substantial spending spree this summer, as the club broke their transfer record three times in signing Andreas Cornelius, Steven Caulker and Gary Medel, trusting Moody with the funds to provide Mackay with the players that they hope will give Cardiff the best chance of survival.
For all that, though, Mackay remains the most impressive thing about Cardiff. Managers such as Mackay do not obsess about the quality or the price tag of the players he might or might not have at his disposal. They talk about the great intangibles of a football team – professionalism, structure, unity, intelligence, discipline. The team he has built over the past couple of years is characterised by those attributes and by the type of focus that becomes increasingly hard to maintain when the players feel like they are becoming bit-part characters in The Vincent Tan Show.
Tan admitted three years ago that he knew precious little about football. More recently, speaking at that aforementioned conference in Kuala Lumpur, he indicated he was becoming a little more confident. “Recently,” he said, “I was talking to my football coach [Mackay] and asked him to tell the players to make more attempts at goal. I wasn’t them to shoot the ball into the net and not to pass the ball so much, because I believe the increase in goal attempts is in line with the law of averages, so if we had 20 goal attempts, at least two will go in.”

Just imagine what Mackay, or indeed any player, coach or manager, apart from possibly Egil Olsen or John Beck, would make of that. It is the type of crass advice a manager can try to laugh off, but there has been more and more of it at Cardiff this season as Mackay’s team selections and tactics have been questioned in a manner that suggests the board know best where football is concerned.


Cardiff’s presence in the Premier League, joining their fierce rivals Swansea City, should be one of the feelgood stories of the season; it certainly felt good, as a neutral, to be there on the afternoon that they beat Manchester City 3-2 in August. Increasingly the concern is that the main threat to their survival hopes is internal strife, emanating from above.
Maybe we should finish by returning to Tan and his “angels”. “To me, the word ‘angel’ is a generous term for investors as not all investors are angels,” he said. “They may start as angels, but they might turn out not be so angelic later.”
Ok, so he was not talking about football, but the analogy fits. This angel has helped Cardiff City a lot. Now he needs to help by leaving Mackay to get on with his job with minimal disruption."

Truely national recognition of the circus show that is Cardiff City FC - Oliver Kay column in The Times today

Try the link but you usually need an online subscription to The Times to read the complete article.

http://thetim.es/1aw1fuh

my understanding of alturistic is that it means giving freely.tan has given ccfc nothing freely.even the money is loaned at 7pc.it,s a massive ego trip for him.that was apparent when he changed you from blue to red.success will bring new fans in asia not the colour.red could have been worn every away game possible like qpr.qpr have a malaysian owner.if ccfc had failed to go up last season would tan be able to spout his nonsense still?i doubt it.the masses may have turned on him.angel?dearie me.

Here it is...

" ' Cardiff's Angel Appears At Risk Of A Fall '

' The Times '

Vincent Tan considers himself an angel. Not in the celestial sense, perhaps, but, when it comes to the use of his wealth. “If you have surplus money,” he told a conference in Kuala Lumpur 12 months ago, “you should invest and be an angel as this will create employment and give our young people a chance.”

Sponsoring young entrepreneurs in his native Malaysia is not Tan’s only angelic pursuit. According to those close to him, he regards his investment in Cardiff City in similar terms. He looks out on the home crowd on a matchday, king of all that he surveys, and feels a great sense of warmth at having given them top-flight football for the first time in more than half a century. He feels as if he has managed, to borrow an endearing Bill Shankly quote, to “make the people happy”.
There is just one problem with Tan’s contribution to Cardiff. This supposedly altruistic venture has taken the look of an ego trip. Sections of the club’s support have begun to take the rough with the smooth where his ownership is concerned, but it has become clear in the past week, as if it was not clear before, that his unpopular “rebranding” of the club, with the kit colour changed from blue to red, is symptomatic of a power trip in which football expertise, like tradition, is regarded as expendable.
Even by the chaotic standards of certain clubs in 21st-century football, what has happened at Cardiff this week is bizarre: an unseemly row between players and management about a bonus structure; the unexplained dismissal of Iain Moody, the head of recruitment; the destabilisation of Malky Mackay, the manager who led the club to the Barclays Premier League; the mysterious promotion of Alisher Apsalyamov, the 23-year-old Kazakh who has gone from odd-job man, helping out with painting one of the stands, to being confirmed yesterday as acting head of recruitment in place of Moody.
Little is known of Apsalyamov beyond the fact that he has no previous experience in professional football and that he is a friend of U-Juin, Tan’s son. Still, wheeling and dealing in the transfer market? Any fool can do that on Football Manager. How hard can it be? What could possibly go wrong?


Here is what could wrong. It could totally destabilise the club. In fact, it already has. Mackay is known to have been upset and bewildered by this week’s events, but perhaps that was the idea, since there have been strong rumours that the board wanted him to resign. Simon Lim, the chief executive, was asked on Wednesday whether it was true that Mackay had been asked for his resignation. “No comment,” he said, rather disconcertingly.

By last night Cardiff were projecting a united front, with Tan saying in a statement that he had “every faith in Malky and his team to lead us through the challenges of the Premier League. I have supported him in the past and will do so in the future for many years to come.”
Let us hope that is the case, for Cardiff’s sake. No matter how Tan might rank the various factors that have taken the club to the Premier League – himself first, the “lucky” red shirts second, you suspect – most rational observers would look at the job that Mackay has done in South Wales and suggest that he is their prized asset. Or an inspired appointment, if Tan and friends board wish to view it in different terms.
There have been suggestions from inside the club for some time that Tan dislikes the way the Cardiff supporters – and indeed the media – fete Mackay for the team’s success while demonising the owner over the rebranding controversy.
So in the interests of balance, let us state that, since his Malaysian consortium took control of the club in 2010, Tan has invested £125 million, including £70 million of loans that he has said will be converted into equity, as Cardiff have become a debt-free, financially stable Premier League club. He helped finance a substantial spending spree this summer, as the club broke their transfer record three times in signing Andreas Cornelius, Steven Caulker and Gary Medel, trusting Moody with the funds to provide Mackay with the players that they hope will give Cardiff the best chance of survival.
For all that, though, Mackay remains the most impressive thing about Cardiff. Managers such as Mackay do not obsess about the quality or the price tag of the players he might or might not have at his disposal. They talk about the great intangibles of a football team – professionalism, structure, unity, intelligence, discipline. The team he has built over the past couple of years is characterised by those attributes and by the type of focus that becomes increasingly hard to maintain when the players feel like they are becoming bit-part characters in The Vincent Tan Show.
Tan admitted three years ago that he knew precious little about football. More recently, speaking at that aforementioned conference in Kuala Lumpur, he indicated he was becoming a little more confident. “Recently,” he said, “I was talking to my football coach [Mackay] and asked him to tell the players to make more attempts at goal. I wasn’t them to shoot the ball into the net and not to pass the ball so much, because I believe the increase in goal attempts is in line with the law of averages, so if we had 20 goal attempts, at least two will go in.”

Just imagine what Mackay, or indeed any player, coach or manager, apart from possibly Egil Olsen or John Beck, would make of that. It is the type of crass advice a manager can try to laugh off, but there has been more and more of it at Cardiff this season as Mackay’s team selections and tactics have been questioned in a manner that suggests the board know best where football is concerned.


Cardiff’s presence in the Premier League, joining their fierce rivals Swansea City, should be one of the feelgood stories of the season; it certainly felt good, as a neutral, to be there on the afternoon that they beat Manchester City 3-2 in August. Increasingly the concern is that the main threat to their survival hopes is internal strife, emanating from above.
Maybe we should finish by returning to Tan and his “angels”. “To me, the word ‘angel’ is a generous term for investors as not all investors are angels,” he said. “They may start as angels, but they might turn out not be so angelic later.”
Ok, so he was not talking about football, but the analogy fits. This angel has helped Cardiff City a lot. Now he needs to help by leaving Mackay to get on with his job with minimal disruption."

Cheers

'...if we had 20 goal attempts, at least two will go in'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24098608

Truely national recognition of the circus show that is Cardiff City FC - Oliver Kay column in The Times today

Try the link but you usually need an online subscription to The Times to read the complete article.

http://thetim.es/1aw1fuh
.
There is just one problem with Tan’s contribution to Cardiff. This supposedly altruistic venture has taken the look of an ego trip.

What does 'altruistic' mean? And no, I have not got a dictionary.

Truely national recognition of the circus show that is Cardiff City FC - Oliver Kay column in The Times today

Try the link but you usually need an online subscription to The Times to read the complete article.

http://thetim.es/1aw1fuh
.
There is just one problem with Tan’s contribution to Cardiff. This supposedly altruistic venture has taken the look of an ego trip.

What does 'altruistic' mean? And no, I have not got a dictionary.

doing good for others

Truely national recognition of the circus show that is Cardiff City FC - Oliver Kay column in The Times today

Try the link but you usually need an online subscription to The Times to read the complete article.

http://thetim.es/1aw1fuh
.
There is just one problem with Tan’s contribution to Cardiff. This supposedly altruistic venture has taken the look of an ego trip.

What does 'altruistic' mean? And no, I have not got a dictionary.

The opposite of Vincent Tan

Truely national recognition of the circus show that is Cardiff City FC - Oliver Kay column in The Times today

Try the link but you usually need an online subscription to The Times to read the complete article.

http://thetim.es/1aw1fuh
.
There is just one problem with Tan’s contribution to Cardiff. This supposedly altruistic venture has taken the look of an ego trip.

What does 'altruistic' mean? And no, I have not got a dictionary.

doing good for others

freely i believe

This article is not only spot on but importantly, is in The Times. VT, Mehmet Dalman and Lim plus the board will all read it over the weekend and prior to the board meeting. Common sense from a neutral in a news publication that is read across the business world will not go ignored. VT will not want this sort of publicity as many from his network will also have read it. We appreciate the investment VT but please leave the football to the professionals you have appointed. They really are gold dust and Malky Mackay not only delivers but will grow into one of the greats. Do everything you can to make sure its at Cardiff City and not another club.

Tan is whats known as an "indian giver"......

Thanks, lads. At least I've learned a new word in the course of this fiasco!

Truely national recognition of the circus show that is Cardiff City FC - Oliver Kay column in The Times today

Try the link but you usually need an online subscription to The Times to read the complete article.

http://thetim.es/1aw1fuh
.
There is just one problem with Tan’s contribution to Cardiff. This supposedly altruistic venture has taken the look of an ego trip.

What does 'altruistic' mean? And no, I have not got a dictionary.

Take your pick from below. think the times item refers to the second one



al·tru·ism (ltr-zm)
n.
1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
2. Zoology Instinctive behavior that is detrimental to the individual but favors the survival or spread of that individual's genes, as by benefiting its relatives.