How a Malaysian tycoon tackles the strange business of British football
Vincent Tan, the man who brought the Big Mac to Malaysia and the owner of Cardiff City FC, is taking on three of the most powerful agents in the European game – and he’s not the type to back down
From the moment he took control of Cardiff City Football Club in 2010, it was clear that Malaysian tycoon Vincent Tan wanted to do things his way.
As the man who way back when introduced the McDonald’s Big Mac to Malaysia, and built a multibillion-dollar business empire on the back of it, he must have known a fair bit about culture clashes and how to sell an alien idea to customers hooked on a certain way of doing things.
But this was a Welsh team playing in England, a passionate and proud capital city club playing in the professional league of another nation which until relatively recently considered soccer not so much a business but a community project.
For better or worse, tradition is not so much stamped on the DNA of British soccer, it is the DNA of British soccer.
It is also an area of operation where the bulk of the people who pay at the gate definitely do not consider themselves “customers”, but fans. If a customer doesn’t like what a shop is selling or the price tag, they take their custom elsewhere. A fan doesn’t, a fan is for life.
So when Tan changed the club’s badge and colours not long after he took over, the negative response was hardly a shock. Likewise, it didn’t come as much of a surprise when he was forced to change them both back again after a sustained campaign of opposition.