Wednesday 18th December 2013.
Vincent Tan Is Making Cardiff a Laughing Stock, and That's Just Bad Marketing.
Vincent Tan is a businessman. He'd like you to know that. He is such a keen businessman that he changed Cardiff City's shirt colour from blue to red, because he thought it would increase revenue for the club in Asia, specifically his home country of Malaysia, because red is a luckier/more marketable colour in that part of the world.
That some fans were happy to swallow this and purchase the new scarlet jerseys says plenty about what some will put up with for success. And success is one thing that has undeniably come under Tan's tenure—while it would be too much to give him all the credit, Cardiff cruised to promotion last season, and on the pitch have made a solid start to their Premier League campaign.
They may be only four points clear of the relegation zone, but for a newly-promoted club, they have done reasonably well.
Of course, there is room for improvement, and with the January transfer window looming, Malky Mackay sees a chance to do this, specifically by strengthening his squad. He said, as quoted by Sky Sports last week.
The first thing to ask is why, if Tan and the board were unhappy with the £15 million overspend, it was authorised in the first place? Moody didn't dip his fingers into the till and pay for Steven Caulker with used fivers—someone further up the chain of command must have said OK.
If the board didn't want to spend that money, they didn't have to, and they certainly didn't have to consistently publicly undermine their manager to the point where the only conclusion that can be reached is that they're trying to get him to resign.
Mackay must be somewhere close to the end of his tether, but he has stated that he will not quit, and why should he? He has done an excellent job at Cardiff, and by the looks of things without any sort of moral backing from his employers.
One wonders why Tan is doing this. Sure, no megalomaniac employer likes a truculent underling, but if they're that unhappy with Mackay, why not just fire him? As it is, with his autocratic behaviour and bizarre decisions and statements, he is making Cardiff look like a laughing stock.
And as a businessman, Vincent Tan should know that's just bad marketing.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1893 ... ble-entity