' Vincent Tan’s mismanagement ' (QPR)

Cardiff living with the consequences of Tan’s mismanagement – opposition profile

Saturday 15th Aug 2015

by Clive Whittingham(QPR)


In the Premier League just a season ago and with parachute payments to spend, Cardiff are nevertheless a distant thirteenth favourite for the title this term after years of mismanagement.

The hostility and condemnation of Cardiff City’s madcap Malaysian owner has eased in recent times.

Originally seen as the archetypal megalomaniac foreign owner, undermining the wise old English football manager who got his club promoted to the Premier League in the first place, public opinion has swung around somewhat since the revelations about Malky Mackay and Iain Moody’s text and phone conversations came to light. Far from the innocent, hardworking, successful manager building both Cardiff and his reputation in the face of impossible working conditions imposed by his chairman, Mackay was shown up as a racist and a bigot. Tan, suddenly, the innocent party in it all, had been lambasted for wanting a prehistoric troglodyte out of his club.

A decision to change the club colours from blue to red, which set supporter against supporter as a battle over whether Tan’s money and Premier League football was more important than a century of tradition, was also suddenly reversed midway through last season after a Christmas heart to heart between Tan and his mother Madam Low Siew Beng who succeeded where thousands of loyal Cardiff fans had failed over many months.



But let’s be very clear here, this is another old British institution and community asset being appallingly run by foreign ownership laughably deemed “fit and proper” by the bodies that are supposed to govern and safeguard them.

The Championship is absolutely riddled with them. Leeds United, Nottingham Forest, Queens Park Rangers, Cardiff City, Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers, Fulham, Hull City… some of the country’s biggest clubs, some of its most historic, some of its best supported all being held at the whim of foreign investors who have been naïve in some cases, incompetent in others, fraudulent at Birmingham and malicious at Hull.

The damage Tan has done at Cardiff was there for all to see on the opening day of the season last week when the team drew 1-1 at home to Fulham. City were in the Premier League little over 12 months ago, and still have two years of parachute payments remaining, but figure in few pundits’ thinking when it comes to the promotion picture from the second tier this season. FourFourTwo’s season preview has them down to finish seventeenth. The bookies have 13 other clubs more likely to win the league than them, including Brentford, newly promoted Bristol City and perennial midtable stodge Sheffield Wednesday. Sky Bet will give you a long 40/1 on it happening.

Tan may have been vindicated in the Mackay incident, but he’s worked his way through two managers since. Ole Gunnar Solksjaer was supposed to be the much sought-after great white hope of management based on his achievements with Manchester United Reserves, Molde and on Football Manager. He assembled an expensive, eclectic collection of players from all around Europe, some of whom worked and many of whom didn’t. He was sacked in September last season after winning two of his first seven matches in the Championship. In his place came Russell Slade, with an entirely new philosophy built around bringing in players who’d impressed against his Leyton Orient team in the division below – Eoin Doyle looked worth a punt from Chesterfield, Alex Revell, at 32, less so from Rotherham. The squad is a weird collection of three managers’ ideas put together with three different budgets across two different divisions in 24 months.



The Fulham match was played in front of 17,871 empty seats – a situation not helped by the unnecessary plonking of a second tier on top of the side stand of a brand new, already adequately sized stadium. In bright red of course.

Tan, like Assem Allam at Hull, has found that if you burn off your support and antagonise people when the going is good, don’t expect them to still be there when it’s not, and those that remain aren’t going to be friendly towards you. In the Premier League, where the broadcast income dwarfs the ticket receipts, supporters can be taken for granted. In the Championship, they’re vital. Cardiff had sold only 500 tickets for Loftus Road at the start of the week and while that has since doubled it's not sold out having previously been one of the biggest, noisiest visitors to West London. Cardiff fans, who once made Ninian Park one of the Football League’s most intimidating venue, and brought police forces out in big numbers when they travelled away, are suddenly beset by apathy. Another group who saw their club taken over and a series of odd decisions made, without their say, even though they've been there for generations and will continue to be so decades into the future.

It’s a story we’ll tell a dozen times this season. An owner drawn in by the television money on offer in the Premier League, riding roughshod over the very traditions of the sport and strength of the support base that make the television rights so valuable in the first place, finds himself financing midweek visits from Rotherham in front of more empty seats than paying customers.

Tan, like Allam at Hull, now rarely attends games, instead leaving the “running” of the club to chairman Mehmet Dalman and CEO Ken Choo. Seagull management – fly in, flap around and shit on everything, fly out. Cardiff continue to live with his decisions in his absence.

Yep. Its a good summary.

Wish we could have answers on where Tan and our club are going.

Tan is a clever business man. Every business has a 3-5 year strategy.

If this was shared with the fans we,d know the agenda and would maybe build trust.

Sadly the agenda is apparent with management set up and asset stripping.

We don't have local billionaire so no wonder foreign investment is rife

Yep. Its a good summary.

Wish we could have answers on where Tan and our club are going.

Tan is a clever business man. Every business has a 3-5 year strategy.

If this was shared with the fans we,d know the agenda and would maybe build trust.

Sadly the agenda is apparent with management set up and asset stripping.

We don't have local billionaire so no wonder foreign investment is rife

Mike, yes I agree with your post and the original one

A very good OP & someaccurate follow up . The word apathy does seem to hit the nail on the head . Many , perhaps some of the thinkers amongst the fanbase seem to have diluted their opposition to Tan with the club now back in blue - but until he sells up & new ownership is in place frankly ,the club will continue it's steady course onto the rocks !

Full steam ahead ..... hope I'm wrong but see little but abject failure ahead with Tan & his crew in the wheelhouse !

It sums up our situation well. Though I would say that we aren't 'suddenly' beset by apathy, the apathy has slowly nurtured over the past 3 seasons, with fans trickling away throughout that time because of all of the above, but mostly the rebrand. I truly hope tabs cost cutting works well enough for him to eventually put us up for sale

It sums up our situation well. Though I would say that we aren't 'suddenly' beset by apathy, the apathy has slowly nurtured over the past 3 seasons, with fans trickling away throughout that time because of all of the above, but mostly the rebrand. I truly hope tabs cost cutting works well enough for him to eventually put us up for sale

A good article, for me that summary is right. it's true that the club was shitting on the fans when they thought they were this big, successful PL powerhouse club.

The upper-tier was a ridiculous idea when the club was not an established PL side.

Was that written by someone from here? QPR have been the worst run of the lot. And they are still stuck in a crap,stadium that is too small to sustain a Premier League team. Their owner has thrown good money after bad for too long - at least our owner has seen some sense (and I don't like everything he's done) and reined in the spending. Also, we have a good stadium and infrastructure , which they still don't have.

Despite appearing to have a go at us, I suspect there is a strong hint of jealousy in that article.

I don't think he's 'having a go at us', on the contrary its tone is sympathetic from one football fan to another. It's a fair and well written assessment of our plight.

I don't think he's 'having a go at us', on the contrary its tone is sympathetic from one football fan to another. It's a fair and well written assessment of our plight.

Why didn't he write same assessment of his owner? As above states he has squandered as much if not more money, and innreality are worse off with maybe exception of players! Maybe fair assessment but He is having dig how else can you describe it?

Was that written by someone from here? QPR have been the worst run of the lot. And they are still stuck in a crap,stadium that is too small to sustain a Premier League team. Their owner has thrown good money after bad for too long - at least our owner has seen some sense (and I don't like everything he's done) and reined in the spending. Also, we have a good stadium and infrastructure , which they still don't have.

Despite appearing to have a go at us, I suspect there is a strong hint of jealousy in that article.

The anti-Tan/Slade brigade will love the OP because it panders to their feelings but it makes you wonder just who he's been listening to as it is so obviously second hand info and not investigative journalism but I guess some people just won't let it lie.

I don't think he's 'having a go at us', on the contrary its tone is sympathetic from one football fan to another. It's a fair and well written assessment of our plight.

Why didn't he write same assessment of his owner? As above states he has squandered as much if not more money, and innreality are worse off with maybe exception of players! Maybe fair assessment but He is having dig how else can you describe it?

we are playing QPR today Allan, it's not only City fans that have opinions on how the club is run

Was that written by someone from here? QPR have been the worst run of the lot. And they are still stuck in a crap,stadium that is too small to sustain a Premier League team. Their owner has thrown good money after bad for too long - at least our owner has seen some sense (and I don't like everything he's done) and reined in the spending. Also, we have a good stadium and infrastructure , which they still don't have.

Despite appearing to have a go at us, I suspect there is a strong hint of jealousy in that article.

Thats written directly from a QPR fan.

Loft for words

by Clive Whittingham(QPR)

The oppositions view of us.

I don't think he's 'having a go at us', on the contrary its tone is sympathetic from one football fan to another. It's a fair and well written assessment of our plight.

Why didn't he write same assessment of his owner? As above states he has squandered as much if not more money, and innreality are worse off with maybe exception of players! Maybe fair assessment but He is having dig how else can you describe it?

we are playing QPR today Allan, it's not only City fans that have opinions on how the club is run

Correct Thomas, other fans have a right to their views/opinions good or bad.

Too many wannabe owners think they can just put some investment in, gain promotion then reap the financial benefits from the Sky TV money.look at that list of clubs which as some have already mentioned also includes the writer"s club.

I don't think the article is necessarily over the top against Tan as the writer also highlights how the public and media changed when the texts ,etc came out and some of the poor signings by the managers in particular Ole.

A very good article and well worth reading

Hard to disagree with large parts of it and certainly with the "Cardiff fans have allowed apathy to set in" comment

One note of interest, though: QPR are as mis-managed (maybe even more so) than we are/have been but ask yourselves how much you think about their situation/plight?

If, like me, the answer is "occasionally but not seriously" then it should put into equal perspective of what other clubs and their supporters really think about our club and its perceived issues, i.e. not a lot!

The days of 'real concern' and holding out cash buckets for teams in real trouble (as we did for Swansea prior to their re-birth) are over and the only club we can concern ourselves with is our own; Cardiff City FC

Still a proud club, with a proud history and (when not so apathetic) and a support to be reckoned with at home and away

We are STILL Cardiff City and deep down we knows we loves it!

Yep. Its a good summary.

Wish we could have answers on where Tan and our club are going.

Tan is a clever business man. Every business has a 3-5 year strategy.

If this was shared with the fans we,d know the agenda and would maybe build trust.

Sadly the agenda is apparent with management set up and asset stripping.

We don't have local billionaire so no wonder foreign investment is rife

Well using your theory previous plans went like this, take over in 2010 promoted in 2013 (3 year plan?) back in the Championship by 2015 (5 year plan )

If the club were to reveal its plans then would we believe them if they stated promotion to the Premiership would be assured within 12-36 months? Also if they said "well VT has had enough and the plan is to squeeze as much out of the club before he jumps ship" then all hell would break out.

It's really naïve to expect the club to come up with a deliverable plan to cover the mid-term because so much can go wrong. The best is an aspiration for promotion but not at all costs.

Was that written by someone from here? QPR have been the worst run of the lot. And they are still stuck in a crap,stadium that is too small to sustain a Premier League team. Their owner has thrown good money after bad for too long - at least our owner has seen some sense (and I don't like everything he's done) and reined in the spending. Also, we have a good stadium and infrastructure , which they still don't have.

Despite appearing to have a go at us, I suspect there is a strong hint of jealousy in that article.

The anti-Tan/Slade brigade will love the OP because it panders to their feelings but it makes you wonder just who he's been listening to as it is so obviously second hand info and not investigative journalism but I guess some people just won't let it lie.

The article is a good read and certainly puts one side of the story very well.

However, there are details such as VT saving us from liquidation in 2010 missing and of course his backing of managers who consistently let him down. A brilliant article would be balanced and this article is not.

Yep. Its a good summary.

Wish we could have answers on where Tan and our club are going.

Tan is a clever business man. Every business has a 3-5 year strategy.

If this was shared with the fans we,d know the agenda and would maybe build trust.

Sadly the agenda is apparent with management set up and asset stripping.

We don't have local billionaire so no wonder foreign investment is rife

Well using your theory previous plans went like this, take over in 2010 promoted in 2013 (3 year plan?) back in the Championship by 2015 (5 year plan )

If the club were to reveal its plans then would we believe them if they stated promotion to the Premiership would be assured within 12-36 months? Also if they said "well VT has had enough and the plan is to squeeze as much out of the club before he jumps ship" then all hell would break out.

It's really naïve to expect the club to come up with a deliverable plan to cover the mid-term because so much can go wrong. The best is an aspiration for promotion but not at all costs.

Yep the club has been very clear on its plan. Aim for promotion but not on silly money.

That's alright. Of course most of us know the promotion bit is highly unlikely to happen. Hence why most of us have accepted mid table mediocre.