CITY TARGET STRIKER WARD
BLUEBIRDS IN LINE TO MAKE STRIKER WARD THEIR LATEST SUMMER SIGNING
THE football season never really ends.
As the Premier League season drew to a close recently, Tottenham chose to jet off to Hong Kong for a lucrative friendly against Kitchee, while Liverpool headed down under for a highprofile exhibition match with Sydney FC.
In July, Arsenal will divide their time between Australia and China. Chelsea also visit China, plus Singapore. Both sides of Manchester are set for the States, along with Swansea and Spurs.
Last year, Premier League clubs clocked up around 170,000 miles between them, reaching out to supporters around the world.
Asia is often the destination of choice, as it is seen as the biggest untapped market in the world.
As Cardiff City supporters, we already know this.
It was the primary motivation for the club’s rebrand, with red viewed as a lucky, prosperous colour. What seemed rather strange at the time was the club’s willingness to alter their identity to appeal to the Asian market, yet their unwillingness to then take that product to Asia.
Vincent Tan took charge of Cardiff in May 2010 and it strikes me as rather strange that they have not organized a pre-season tour of his native Malaysia in any of the eight years since.
They were all set for Kuala Lumpur shortly after Tan’s takeover, but plans to face the Malaysian national side were shelved. Maybe that was a result of Cardiff missing out on promotion to the Premier League, having lost the play-off final to Blackpool, but Dave Jones returned from a jaunt t Malaysia only to confirm: “We’ve decided to revert to our alternative plans.”
“After a great trip to Malaysia, we can see the opportunities and benefits to the club would be much bigger if we have the tour next year,” he added.
Unfortunately, Cardiff once again failed in their top flight objective, Jones was sacked and the Malaysian trip was not revived.
In 2013, a year after their change to red and ahead of Cardiff’s maiden top flight campaign, they postponed a promotional trip to Malaysia due to polution in the country at the time, resulting from fires in Indonesia.
Manager Malky Mackay, captain Mark Hudson, David Marshall and Craig Bellamy were all set to head out to visit schools and give speeches in the local community.
“It’s with disappointment that the planned visit to Malaysia this week by Malky, David, Mark, Craig and other club delegates has been postponed,” confirmed Tan.
“A schedule of events had been put in place ahead of the opening Premier League fixtures, further raising awareness of Cardiff City Football Club in Malaysia.
“However, due to the current poor air quality in Kuala Lumpur, it has been decided for the welfare of all concerned to delay the trip, re-establishing plans in the future when the manager and players can better interact with Malaysianbased supporters in a suitable environment.”
Cardiff were subsequently relegated back down to the Championship, have since returned to blue and visiting Malaysia no longer appears to be on the agenda. Whether coincidentally or not, this period has also coincided with Tan rarely attending games anymore, although Cardiff still sport the country’s name as their long-term shirt sponsor.
Appealing to the Asian market is probably way down the club’s list of priorities at present, with cost cutting the order of the day and maybe the expense of such a trip would prove prohibitive.
But the reason clubs undertake such gruelling, long haul trips is because it is a valuable source of revenue and increasing sources of income is one of Cardiff’s greatest obstacles at present.
Liverpool toured Malaysia in 2011 and 80,000 fans turned up to watch them play Bukit Jalil.
So successful was the trip that they returned in 2015 to face a Malaysian XI at the National Stadium.
Obviously, Cardiff do not share Liverpool’s pulling power, prestige or star names, but they do have a strong Malaysian influence and a Malaysian owner, albeit an absent one.
If he is too busy to fly to Cardiff these days, which is understandable with such a substantial array of business interests, why not take Cardiff City to him?
These days, Cardiff managers are expected to fly out to Malaysia to discuss matters relating to the club.
At a time when some are questioning Tan’s commitment to a Premier League push, taking the squad to Malaysia would be a good public relations exercise if nothing else. Any financial benefit resulting from the trip would be an added bonus.
Why not organise a mini tournament featuring FK Sarajevo and KV Kortrijk, Tan’s other acquisitions?
Not only would it improve relations between the three clubs, but it would also serve to promote all three in one fell swoop.
Cardiff’s wealthier and more adventurous supporters would also have an excuse to visit Malaysia and watch the team play in a far more exotic location than Cornwall.