Chris Saunders- Understand Asian culture, understand Tan

Monday 23rd December 2013.

Freelance writer and Cardiff City fan Chris Saunders says understanding Asian culture is key to understanding Vincent Tan's mindset


Understanding the culture in which Vincent Tan has grown up and been successful is key to understanding his approach to the turmoil surrounding Cardiff City, a fan and author claims.

Chris Saunders says Tan is used to a Malaysian culture split into "bosses" and "workers", where the latter do not question the authority of the former.

But he says Tan - having bought what he considered to be "a very expensive ice cream van" - failed to take into account the history and depth of feeling at the football club.

In an article on the Huffington Post , Saunders writes: "Too many people have jumped on the 'TAN OUT' bandwagon without properly understanding the man and what motivates him.

"If we take the time to do that perhaps a resolution of sorts can be reached, because the longer this fiasco is allowed to continue the more harm it does to Cardiff City.

"Besides, everyone should make the effort to know their enemies. If only because it makes defeating them that much easier."





Saunders says Tan is perhaps the most divisive figure in Cardiff City history. While he has been praised for pouring money into the club, he has been strongly criticised for changing the club's core colour from blue to red, while he is now reviled for his treatment of manager Malky Mackay, who is universally loved by the fans.

Several football managers have spoken out, including Liverpool FC boss Brendan Rogers and pundits Gary Lineker and Robbie Savage.

"So, let's try and understand it. Let's see what else he can do," says Saunders.

""The first thing we all need to recognise is that Vincent Tan is rich. Very rich. In fact, he's one of the richest men in the world.

"That doesn't happen by accident. Astute businessmen don't gamble, and they don't like to lose. With that amount of wealth comes a certain sense of entitlement.

"In Asia, they have vastly different cultural values. Society is more rigidly structured, with roles more strictly defined.

"Basically, there are leaders and followers, or in a business setting, bosses and workers. It is not the place of the worker to question the boss' authority or decision-making.

"Rather, the workers spend much of their time paying lip service to their superiors. Often, unashamedly so. In all likelihood, when Tan took control of Cardiff City, he assumed he would be taking control of every facet of the operation.

"And that included every individual on the payroll, or paid their hard-earned money to watch the team play.

"What Tan didn't expect was a bunch of unruly people not doing what they were told. This is an intrinsic cultural difference.

"Asian people are, in general, subservient. They have a designated role, and are more than happy to take orders from above because it saves them having to make any difficult decisions.

"Westerners, on the other hand, are by nature more independent and outspoken. It is entirely possible that in Tan's naivety, when he bought the club, he thought he was also buying the adulation and eternal gratitude of all the club's supporters. He would have thought blind devotion came as part of the deal.

"I imagine that to him, buying Cardiff City FC was like buying a very expensive ice cream van. Let's just give it a new coat of paint, buy some new ingredients, and sell our product to more people. It's easy, right?

"What he didn't take into consideration is the passion and depth of feeling that surrounds football. Cardiff City is not an ice cream van, or a McDonald's franchise. In many ways a football club is a living, breathing entity, steeped in history and tradition.

"Malky Mackay is a man of integrity. He will not take kindly to someone, even the owner of his club, telling him how to do his job. Tan is rumoured to have tried to tinker in team affairs, allegedly once telling Mackay that the team should shoot more from inside their own half, because then they would score more goals.

"Like that would work. Mackay consistently enraged Tan by stubbornly sticking to his guns, and not implementing such ludicrous 'tactical advice.' No doubt, this will have been taken as a serious lack of disrespect.

"Tan will feel he has lost face. His instructions (commands) are not being carried out by his own employees, and worse than that, he finds himself tumbling further down the popularity stakes every day. That wasn't part of the plan.

"The bottom line, as far as Mackay's future is concerned, is that Tan doesn't want a manager who will question his authority. He wants a yes man, a puppet on a string. And he will probably get one eventually.

"Perhaps shocked by the outpouring of support for the manager, in the wake of the defeat at Anfield, Tan made a U-turn and said Mackay will be in charge for the 'foreseeable future.' That is something else that will have hurt his pride. He has made himself look very foolish. But the general consensus is that when a relationship breaks down to this extent very little, if anything, can be done to salvage it."

Chris Saunders' book, From the Ashes: The Real Story of Cardiff City Football Club , is out now.

Sorry but Huffington Post = Left Wing Communists!!!!

Sorry Chris but what I have learned from the Inscrutable Tan about his culture I prefer our own Welsh culture. Its like a mini Malaysia in the stadium already.
Enough is enough for me Im afraid. He sure isnt doing Malaysia Tourist Board a lot of favours.

Sorry but Huffington Post = Left Wing Communists!!!!

... as opposed to those right wing communists?

I think most football owners are the same, they all want yes men want the manager to do it their way, it's normal from rich men who have big egos and buy football clubs, it's really the main downside........

Sorry but Huffington Post = Left Wing Communists!!!!

Better still fascist

He might well "be rich" but he is nowhere near as rich as our football club. Now whilst I don't want tan to go, the first thing he should realise and understand is "our" culture, this football club is our passion, our belief, our history and of course it is in Great Britain and not Malaysia. When he starts to understand us and respect our religion, then the feelings will become mutual. Cardiff City is Blue, we are the bluebirds and the club belongs to the people of Britain that support it, until then, there can be no common ground, that would be a good starting point.
We are all for success on and off the pitch, but they should go hand in hand. Over to you Mr Tan.

This article is spot on. I was in Malaysia for 3 weeks recently and this reflects exactly what I encountered.

We could all take note here and learn something to our benefit.

Give Tan a little and he will give us back loads. Before all this crap blew up nobody could argue with his financial input to the club. He's made a few mega mistakes but if we behave in a more mature way we could benefit no end from his money.

It's ok to say we'd rather be blue and play in Div 2 but surely what we really mean is we'd rather be blue and be in Europe too.

We won't do that without big backers, so let's not throw away the one we have without thinking through ALL the options. Like our away goals at the moment they don't come along very often.

er...there are 27k of you at the ccs.one of vinny tan.far easier for vinny to understand welsh/british culture than 27k try to understand asian culture.oh plus he is in the uk not the other way round

You really need to look into how tan made his money, 1 He is nowhere near one of the richest men in the world fact. 2 With out the close friendship of his gov mates,he would be selling saytay sticks on some street corner of KL. 3 He is very unpopular in his own country and has to have armed guards with him at all times. 4. TG told him the rebrand was a very stupid idea and in the end left this club. 5 TG made tan a fortune and was the brains of the company. 6 All tan is left with now are yes men and a rudderless ship now on a course to f**K noses where. 7. But never mind we could get all the pro red fans to sing,we love him and some of the other shite songs that where on his birthday bash, that made it onto youtube. 8. I do not give a shit on how the bosses and workers in his country behave, because the last time i looked out of my window, i was still in the UK.

er...there are 27k of you at the ccs.one of vinny tan.far easier for vinny to understand welsh/british culture than 27k try to understand asian culture.oh plus he is in the uk not the other way round

100% Correct jtc.

Sorry, but I don't accept this crap. If Tan wants to buy an 'English' football club, then he has to accept our culture. If he wants to make money out of it, then fair enough. Build it up, and sell it on. Make an honest profit. But that's not what's happening here. This is on a par with the Wimbledon/Milton Keynes farce. The football authorities put a stop to that. Hopefully they will put a stop to changing club colours and names as well. Hull City are in a similar situation.

Tan is a philistine, a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing. His ego and arrogance is staggering. Even Abramovich and the Man City Arabs aren't this obnoxious.

I was at Anfield on Saturday, and at long last we had a response. In fact, it was one of the proudest days of my life. Spontaneous, enough is enough! And the Liverpool fans were brilliant. This would never happen to them, but they understood our predicament.

Quite frankly, we need to get this clown Tan out of our club. We are not a bunch of crawlers, or 'company men'. We are Cardiff City Football Club. The Premier League is not worth the rape of our history and culture.

If you want Asian culture, then sod off over there.

It's Tan who needs to accept our culture, not the other way round.

this is the united kingdom......maybe we do things different here...and tan is a guest in this country...

What a load of bollox. This is Wales not f*cking Malaysia. He needs to understand OUR culture not the other way around. Does he expect us to put him on a pedestal simply because he rolled into town and invested a few quid. He needs to earn the fans loyalty and you don't do that by changing our badge, our kit and the best manager we have had for a long time. Tan you can kiss my furry arse!

Nothing to do with culture .

its all to do with money and bad investment. He sacked moody for wasting 12 million quid (19million dollars) on shit strikers.

we then spend 650k on one guy who is prob our best striker.

What the fu*k i this??

I bet thats what tan said

aww poor tan...

he laughed in the face of fans who sang we will always blue at a function..

he can f**k right off

take his money elsewhere... like as if there are not other wealthy potential owners out there

return us to blue and they would be instant legends

just goes to show all that money cant buy you love

Its our culture so understand ours, respect ours. And if I go to Malaysia I will respect his. Simples !! y

Was listening to talksport today and it was mentioned that we wanted to sign this certain player in the summer (they didn't mention names) but apparently Tan's wife is big on the Chinese horoscope and because this player was born in the year of the snake he stopped us signing him, apparently that sign is unlucky.
Number 8 is seen as lucky in the far east and they were joking that we need to sign someone born on the 8th of the 8th and we'd have real quality.
This just highlights what the opening poster was trying to put across..understanding the mans' reasoning behind his actions.
Just checked Malky's not a snake so must be some other reason for his stance with him.

If tan had bought into our clubs traditions rather than implement his own so far away and detached ideas he would have had god like support from in my opinion a set of fans that would have given him partisan loyalty.

I don't see how he fixes this as the term don't suffer fools gladly just as well have evolved from our great supporters as over the years we have been shit on too many times.

absolute rubbish, sorry Chris Saunders but I dont think you have a clue about what you are talking about.

yes asian culture is very subservient to its betters, better being the operative word. In asia if you want to step out and be a leader, you need to be beyond reproach otherwise people wont follow you. so where is tans respect for us, respect for his employees and so forth. If he wants to be respected he needs to respect those around him. Not just because its the right thing to do but because his culture demands it.

This is what Tan suffers with and its nothing to do with where a person comes from. It could happen anywhere:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris

Aint that a fact.

f**k that, How about Tanny boy starts to learn about British culture

Tan is the one who is struggling to understand our culture.

Sorry folks having had first hand experience of malaysian business people IMO this article is absolutley correct in it's assessment of expectations of Malaysian business and culture.
I suspect VT was totally naffed off at the refusal of players to allow him into the dressing room and if malky backed the players or actually made the banning decision himself that could be a major reason for the breakdown in relations.
As owner VT would expect the right to do whatever he wanted within the club without others questioning it - just the way their culture works

Perhaps he had better take his culture back to Malaysia then.

Perhaps he had better take his culture back to Malaysia then.

Exactly! Either clear off, or get used to our culture.