Life under Tan

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Originally Posted by lisvaneblue

I agree that a lot of supporters are dissatisfied with the current manager's performance, the teams performance, and the general lack of strategy in the Club. NW is managed by a part time CEO, who shares his time with the running of VTs car franchise, a London based chairman, and the rest of the Board seem to be based in Malaysia. So he is probably left to do his own thing.
The Trust should be asking what the Club's strategy is for the next five years, including management, development and investment.
Finally, even if we were in the relegation zone, I think NWs job is safe until the whole sad saga of Sala is complete including the final accident report, and the ongoing legal issues are sorted.

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To be fair to the Trust they have been questioning the Club about their governance arrangements. At the beginning of September they applied proposed “fit and proper person” test rules to the members of the Club’s board and concluded that the mystery Malaysian members who no-one has ever heard of and have probably never been to Cardiff wouldn’t pass. You would have thought that a significant proportion of the Club’s board having questionable qualifications to be board members might have stirred up a bit of interest. Well, it didn’t. It was circulated to the press who didn’t pick it up at all, it was posted on message boards where there was negligible interest and because no-one seemed to be bothered I’m not aware of a response from the Club. It was published in the first week of September 2019. At that time it didn’t get response perhaps because everything in the garden was rosy and people were more optimistic for the current season than they are now.

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Originally Posted by Enoch Mort

To be fair to the Trust they have been questioning the Club about their governance arrangements. At the beginning of September they applied proposed “fit and proper person” test rules to the members of the Club’s board and concluded that the mystery Malaysian members who no-one has ever heard of and have probably never been to Cardiff wouldn’t pass. You would have thought that a significant proportion of the Club’s board having questionable qualifications to be board members might have stirred up a bit of interest. Well, it didn’t. It was circulated to the press who didn’t pick it up at all, it was posted on message boards where there was negligible interest and because no-one seemed to be bothered I’m not aware of a response from the Club. It was published in the first week of September 2019. At that time it didn’t get response perhaps because everything in the garden was rosy and people were more optimistic for the current season than they are now.

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Forgive my ignorance here as I know nothing about the running of a football club, why would someone who isn’t owner of the club need to pass this test? It is unlikely they are more than just a name on a paper.

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

We can debate what we want to see from a DoF until the cows come home, but the odds are that Messrs Tan, Dalman and Choo would think differently (I think I'm right in saying that the only public comment we've seen since our relegation on the subject from the three of them was Mehmet Dalman saying we wouldn't be appointing one).

The first thing that needs to happen is for Vincent Tan to come around to a way of thinking which says things aren't working at the club on plenty of levels, we need to do something about it. Frankly, the only way I can see that happening is through of combination which needs the first team to keep on failing like it has been doing for the first three months of the season and a perception that Neil Warnock has been wasting his money.

I feel this is unlikely to happen any time soon because it would appear that Mr Tan has a lot of time for our manager, but, if it does, then my preference would be for him to appoint someone with a working knowledge of all facets of the game to come in from outside to carry out a study into what is needed for Cardiff City to become a more efficient club in terms of administration, recruitment policy and youth development.

Unfortunately, I'd also class this as highly unlikely, whereas I can see a possibility of a decision being made to appoint a popular former player as DoF on the grounds that it would be a move which would prove popular with the fans - given that he is currently doing this job at another club, Steve McPhail seems as good a bet as anyone to me.

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Vincent Tan wouldn't need to look very far, he was until recently involved with a club in the states which have come from nothing to topping the league and playing very entertaining football. They have a dof and appear to be fully onboard with modern thinking on things like tactics and recruitment.

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Originally Posted by dembethewarrior

Forgive my ignorance here as I know nothing about the running of a football club, why would someone who isn’t owner of the club need to pass this test? It is unlikely they are more than just a name on a paper.

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My knowledge of running a football club is probably similar to yours. Here is a quote from Keith Morgan's piece on the proposed rules and how they came about.


Trust chair and football finance expert, Keith Morgan, gives his verdict on whether Cardiff City directors would pass or fail proposed new Owner and Director Tests drawn up by the Football Supporters’ Association’s (FSA) in a recent paper requested by the Football Association.

For owners, the paper proposes that anyone taking ownership of more than 25% of a club’s shares should firstly be required to pass a test proving that they have a sustainable business plan for the club and that they will appoint people to be the club’s directors that have the skills and experience to run it properly, including having satisfactory engagement with the club’s supporters and other stakeholders.

Tests for both owners and directors would involve full disclosure of any previous personal insolvency issues, failures as a director of insolvent companies, criminal convictions etc. and that any such incidences should be regarded prima facie as a bar from becoming an owner or director. There would also be a bar on owners borrowing money to buy a club but giving the lender security over club assets for that lending i.e. borrowing money personally, but leaving the burden of that lending to be met by the club.

The plain fact is that the Board appears to be a sham with 5 absentee Directors including the owner who appears to be an absolute dictator. Only 3 Directors (MD, KC and SB) seem to be in Cardiff at any time with one of them (KC) the employee of VT. KC also runs VT's luxury car business in the UK which must be a further distraction. In terms of governance of the club this does not appear to be in a healthy situation. The lack of football expertise at a senior level (including the owner) in the Club has been discussed at length on this message board. As the major decisions appear to be in the hands of the owner and, seemingly, no collective decision making, it is conceivable that someone with considerable Football experience could have undue influence.

Thanks for saving me the trouble of digging this out.
When this paper was discussed at FSA meetings where I was present representing the Trust and other CCFC fans it was clear that the football authorities are increasingly keen to implement these tougher fit and proper tests for both owners and directors. The events at Bolton and Bury have further strengthened these views.
The initial paper was passed by me to Ken Choo several weeks ago and he was also made well aware of my concerns about various directors who make no contribution to CCFC as a club.
For the record my criticism did not and does not extend to Ken, Mehmet Dalman and Steve Bodley as directors

I could never support another club but right now City are like the half drunk pint you find on the shelf from last night. Flat, lifeless, lacking in taste and best thrown out. This could be the first year in decades where I don’t bother coming down as frankly what’s there to see?

Not sure how Bodley came out as Bodley in that post

It was of course referring to Steve Borley