The crazy world of Mr Tan... He's spent £100m taking Cardiff to the Premier League but is hated by fans for turning shirts red and appointing an unqualified 23-year-old to sign players
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Vincent Tan will fly 14 hours in his private plane from his mansion in Kuala Lumpur to take his seat on Sunday in Cardiff at the biggest club football match ever staged in Wales — a hostile derby of fear and loathing against fierce rivals Swansea.
It is perhaps staggering to those outside Cardiff that Tan, who has invested around £100million in the club, could be the most vilified man in the capital of the Principality today. But in the eyes of thousands of Cardiff fans, he has been reduced from shining knight to court jester.
Nathan Blake, former Cardiff and Wales striker, admits to being bemused by the Malaysian billionaire’s treatment.
All smiles: Vincent Tan has taken Cardiff to the Premier League but is still hated by the club's fans
Blake said last week: ‘For what he’s done for the club, how can Vincent Tan not be a super-hero in the city? Without him, we wouldn’t be having this match, the biggest game in the 100-year history of the rivalry between the clubs. Yet, the fact that Mr Tan isn’t seen as a hero says it all, really.’
At full-time on Sunday, when Tan has to make an immediate return to Malaysia for a business meeting tomorrow morning, a section of Cardiff supporters plan to protest inside the ground against the presence of the 61-year-old billionaire at the helm of the club. But Tan ought not be overly surprised.
More success: Tan (right) embraces Cardiff boss Malky Mackay after reaching the 2012 Carling Cup final
His gift to Cardiff City, beyond his mammoth injection of cash, has been a flawless exercise in mismanagement beyond parody.
He has behaved insensitively towards the club’s proud heritage by changing their strip from blue to red. He has incorporated a dragon in a crest that had always been the exclusive habitat of a bluebird.
And last month he sacked the club’s head of recruitment, Iain Moody, so depriving manager Malky Mackay — regarded as one of the brightest young British coaches — the counsel of the man he most valued at the club.
Fresh faced: Alisher Apsalymov was appointed by Tan as the club's head of recruitment, despite having little experience
Bizarrely, Tan replaced Moody with a 23-year-old from Kazakhstan called Alisher Apsalyamov, who had no previous employment in football but is a friend of one of his sons. Late last week, the Apsalyamov Affair took another farcical twist when the Home Office ordered him to step down until his application for a work permit had been processed.
Cardiff fans fear Mackay could be further unsettled if, as alleged, Tan has employed his unlimited power beyond the boardroom. According to reports last week, at least one player, Slovenian striker Etien Velikonja, who has not made an appearance in the match-day squad this season, was brought to the club for £1.7m without the approval of Mackay.
In common with most men of extreme wealth, Tan is not accustomed to being challenged. In business, his word is law. Yet, he will be reminded today that not even the promise of injecting millions more into Cardiff, or his recent privately made donations to an assortment of grateful local charities across the city — totalling £1m — can buy unequivocal popularity. His name will not be sung with affection.
New boy: Etien Velikonja (front) is believed to have been signed by Cardiff without the approval of Mackay
A weekend Facebook message from Bluebirds Unite read: ‘We need to make ourselves known to Vincent Tan and doing something like this inside the ground is probably the best way to do it. If you are a die-hard Bluebird and refuse to accept the red or refuse to accept Tan (or both) then join in with this action.’
Tan rules mostly by remote control from afar as a newcomer to football, not just the club. For Blake, once a prolific Cardiff striker in the early Nineties, who runs a sports agency with Olympic medallist Darren Campbell and barrister Huw Bowden, the changes Tan has demanded were blunders easily avoided.
‘I don’t dislike Vincent Tan,’ he insisted. ‘You have to tip your hat to him for what he has done for Cardiff. Yet I thought from the beginning that he needed to get someone alongside him who could tell him how the club and its history matter to the people of the city.
Problems: Iain Moody (left) has been suspended by Cardiff and replaced by a rookie
‘After a lifetime in football, you look at the worst case scenario rather than celebrate and say “Wow, we have £100m coming in”. Portsmouth thought that, and we know what happened to them.
‘Football is more than a business, it is connecting with people’s emotions. My father watched Cardiff, as did his father. If Mister Tan changed the shirts back to blue, and declared he was not going to involve himself in the manager’s affairs, he could be a super-hero tomorrow.’
Powerful men such as Tan are uncomfortable with losing face, of course. Yet he is perfectly capable of making maverick statements that invite ridicule, such as when he suggested: ‘If you ask 10 girls to go out with you, no matter how ugly you are, I bet that one will say “Yes”.
Unpopular: Cardiff fans are unhappy with Tan's treatment of Mackay in recent weeks
‘Recently, I was talking to my football coach and asked him to tell players to make more attempts at goal. 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!’
However, a wind of change is blowing through the club. Mehmet Dalman, a 55-year-old British investment banker with Turkish-Cypriot roots and friends inside football, as well as high finance, has emerged as the new Cardiff chairman with a powerful brief.
On Monday, Dalman, who played a significant role in the takeover of Manchester United by the Glazers, had lunch with Mackay. ‘I have a lot of respect for Malky,’ said Dalman, a lifelong football fan of the game worldwide, who once had a trial for Crystal Palace.
Centre of attention: Tan celebrates promotion to the Premier League while wearing Cardiff's new red shirt, just one of the changes fans are unhappy with
He calmed the turbulence surrounding the Apsalyamov Affair at a board meeting on October 14. As the multilingual chairman of private equity investors WMG Advisors LLP, Dalman also has the confidence of Tan. The two speak frequently — and Dalman is determined that Cardiff fans should appreciate Tan as someone with a genuine desire to bring good times to the club.
‘I’d love our fans to find a way to invite Vincent Tan into our world of football rather than push him out,’ said Dalman. ‘I don’t want to lose his love for the game, and Cardiff in particular.’
Dalman says he will check with Mackay by text message before paying a visit to the Cardiff dressing room before the game today. ‘I don’t want to get in the way, but I like to see him and the players,’ he said. ‘So does Vincent — I’m not sure he sends a text, though!
‘This is a very expensive business. Vincent has pumped in a substantial amount of money and he is prepared to pump in even more, because he cares. What we have to do is ensure the financial structure is right. Vincent is a winner, he’s also a good man.’
Saving grace: Mehmet Dalman (left) has recently been appointed chairman at Cardiff
Dalman is implementing a business model where he will chair a new, three-man transaction committee. ‘We want no room for potential misunderstandings or accidents,’ he said. ‘We want full professional transparency for the club, and for Vincent.’
And as Cardiff director Steve Borley argued last week, Tan is at least deserving of respect as ‘a brave man to take on a basket case of a club’.
For Dalman, Tan’s presence today, at an inconvenient time in his business life, is proof of his passion. ‘You tell me who else is going to put in that sort of effort if they didn’t have an emotional attachment to Cardiff City?’ asked Dalman, an urbane, sophisticated ally who can bring a voice of reason to the crazy world of Vincent Tan.
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