This is a ??????????????? to be asked at the end of july when all the pieces of malkys jigsaw are in place, before then we may as well play football manager on the playstation. Other than that im with Oldsparkey on this
The first signing is the important one. It must be hard to tempt players to a club with a threadbare squad. What do you sell, other than a vision. If we could get Bellamy on board sharpish it would be a big selling point to potential new recruits. Building a team from a group of individuals will be MM's big challenge given no core to blend them with. I'm sure he's up to the task. He's back off hols tomorrow. Hopefully the backroom staff will be sorted PDQ and they can all get alligned to MMs vision and hit the ground running for pre-season.
To follow on, HOW REALISTIC ARE THE OWNERS EXPECTATIONS? I think the owners may have had a harsh introduction into the real world of football finance, don't get me wrong these guys are far frpm idiots, and must have had a fair idea of what they were getting into. But look at the first season, (Thank god they turned up when they did to pull us out of the deep and smelly stuff ) for a relatively small outlay they got us within a whisker of the premiership, and the £90million windfall, pay off Langstone, and end up with a premiership club to market in SE Asia, bingo a licence to print money for what in the scheme of things was a small outlay, nothing to it. OK a minor hiccup at Wembley on the way to picking up the pot of gold,, we will do it next season, now what do we need, spend a couple of million, and spend a bit on loan wages through the season say £8 - £10 million in total, spread over a year, that means we will probably have to stump up about £6 million over the season, not a bad outlay to scoop up a £90 million return. We all know what happened, and to their credit the owners haven't cut and run as many, (mainly from deepest, darkest, westest, Wales) predicted. Now how high are there expectations, and more importantly how much are they prepared to spend to realise them, they now know that the team needs a pretty big overhaul to become SERIOUS promotion contenders, and they now realise it can't be done on the "cheap", do they provide a realistic transfer budget (£15 -£20 million, who knows?) and go for it, or will they regard this as chucking good money after bad? It looks like the appointment of MM is a long term one, but will they be looking at marketing the company in the Far East and use generated revenue to fund any promotion push over the long term, or are they prepared to throw what would be a substantial sum of money at the club in search of the "quick fix"? The key to this IMO is Sam Hamman, if they can get him off our back relatively cheaply, then there will be money to spare, but whilst the owners are not exactly sure how much it is going to cost to get rid of him, I think they will tread carefully and not REALLY splash the cash...........interesting times
"The key to this IMO is Sam Hamman, if they can get him off our back relatively cheaply, then there will be money to spare, but whilst the owners are not exactly sure how much it is going to cost to get rid of him, I think they will tread carefully and not REALLY splash the cash...........interesting times" As you said Proph these owners are not dull, there must be more that just smoke for them to bring in the forensic accountants, AA on his site said that Sam had filed against CCFC but he soon took it off just like their updates. Hope Sam ends up with pennies, having said that I don't think that the transfer budget will have to take this in consideration
Quite a bit of talk about 'The Asia Thing' i.e - making loads of money from that market by achieving PL status! While I don't want to burst any bubbles please allow me to say this, and you know I have no ill feeling towards Cardiff City or it's fans. Making money simply by having Asian/Malaysian owners and making the PL does not ensure a river of cash going anywhere. I am hoping Siam will back me up a bit with this........... Leicester City are have a sponsorship deal with King Power, an Asian/Thailand based group/company. They are trying to introduce Leicester City to Thailand and I have seen their shirts for sale at Bangkok airport (nearly fell over in disbelief when I saw them ). To say it has not been what you would successful would be putting it mildly. Being a Championship team is not the problem. The problem is they do not compete in the Champions League. That is where Cardiff (or any team) needs to be to start to get a look in, in Asia. I suspect perhaps the owners do not realise this or are perhaps convinced they can make Cardiff a household name in Asia by succeeding in Europe
Thai, what's the saying?...from little acorns etc. I've no idea whats going on in Thailand (or Malaysia for that matter) but I'm sure TG/VT are aware of the potential for investment through strategic marketing etc in Malaysia and see it as an opportunity. Bear in mind this is just a theory formulated in my own little world but if I was a local (Malay??) with no affiliation to any team and you showed me a range of shirts (excluding the obvious bigger prem clubs) I think I'd be drawn to the one that has 'Malaysia' across the chest. I know it's just a small thing and wouldn't constitute 'breaking' the far east but every seed has to be planted somewhere.
The foxes not having great shirt sales is not really a good example of why loads of money will not be made by the Malaysians, as you make the point yourself, they are a championsip team! It won't be just about shirt sales anyway, smaller part of the overall plan they have judging some of the things I have read. But PL is a must to even start on the road they hope to travell. So don't worry about bursting any bubbles, we have to get there first and so far we don't have a team It's just fans talking and making the world look better, but in the same breath these guys are on a mission and its not just about shirt sales.
Thai - you've just answered your own question. Leicester City are not in the Premier League, they've got to get there first. If they were, you'd see a different story unfolding. The point is that that is the eventual goal for these investors. Picking up a relatively inexpensive Champ club and funding it through to Premier level is far preferable to obtaining one already there. What was the point in buying WHU last season for instance with their reported £110M deficit? Sullivan and Gold must be mad (or very shrewd?). Whilst I bow to your knowledge of the area, any Asian owners of a Premier Club (Malaysians in our case) would have a huge marketing potential to exploit. Vincent Tan knows all about that and didn't get where he is by making rash decisions.
I am sure they are on a mission and have a fully fledged business plan that looks great on paper but as last season will have shown them just become something looks fantastic on paper (Cardiff City team) does not mean it's going to work as they expected. Beyond merchandising, what do other clubs do? I know Man Utd, Liverpool come to Thailand to play friendlies and quite possibly feed money in the pockets of both the rich & poor Thai populous and maybe some freebies to 'get them on board' but to me it still seems an odd thing to do. Although there are many Thai's or Chinese and Malaysians who have moved here to open business that have some good money but the people of the country, and particularly the North East are very, very poor (Ave wage of about £160 a month)
Sparky, you did not acknowledge the Champions League bit - I think this is crucial for it to work the way they hope it will.
It will be in the businesses they have built up canary, it been written about a bit on other boards and to be honest, as its a thing far into the future I failed to take that much notice that i could relay to you the info properly, forgive me if i don't go huinting down all those threads from different boards. As I have said, its of little concern at this time and just fan talk, lets get there and see. No need fir it to be a main issue, not untill we get a team anyway. PS I hear Conway is down the CCs today and is being shown around.
"Quite a bit of talk about 'The Asia Thing' i.e - making loads of money from that market by achieving PL status! While I don't want to burst any bubbles please allow me to say this, and you know I have no ill feeling towards Cardiff City or it's fans. Making money simply by having Asian/Malaysian owners and making the PL does not ensure a river of cash going anywhere." It may not be a "river of cash", but the Malaysians at Cardiff have a multi - million pound business and media empire and have the infra structure to market the club throughout S.E.Asia and the far east, and have recently have organised a tie up with this lot http://www.cctv.com/ a government approved Chinese TV station which gives them unprecedented access to the potentially huge sports starved Chinese market, I don't KNOW but I wouldn't mind betting that this has figured in their thinking,,,,,after all you don't set up deals with the Chinese authorities in five minutes.....these guys didn't get to be billionaires by being stupid and not planning ahead.......be interesting to see which way they go
i'm sceptical about how any smallish clubs can make any money from far away countries. the most obvious way to make money from abroad would be TV deals, but clearly, no sane thai person would pay any money to see a second rate team in their eyes playing against long ball fodder in the second division of england. they might if we were to be promoted, but realistically any idea of being able to exploit asian interest in football is only for the top clubs in the world like real madrid and man utd. even teams like chelsea struggle to make money from the USA, so what chance have we got
I agree with ThaiCanary that as a Championship club the revenue would be basically non existent. Most shirts bought by fans in Asia are copies. I can go down the local store and buy any shirt for any club I want. ( Mine are purchased from the City shop ) Where is the money in Asia?? Sponsorship and Individual Contribution. How do we get a Chang or AirAsia to sponsor us...How do we get businessmen to make personal contributions? Make the Prem and be relatively successful. I don't think you need to be a top 4 Prem club, but certainly a top 8 one to do this without making a connection with the region. But, the links we are forging in SEA now will eventually ensure a head start in securing long term financial support from the region if/when we go up. Ignore things like shirts sales; focus on corporate money. If we go up, rich businessmen from all over SEA will want to get on board if they feel some connection based on the links our owners can conjure up. The stronger the links the more they will be happier to be seen having some connection with the club even if we were lower Prem level. We have already started to see VT fly some of his "partners" over and the Malaysian newspapers have always talked about how impressed visitors have been with the pride and passion at Cardiff. Remember most of these guys have just watched Manure on TV. Coming to see Cardiff live really makes an impression on them!!!! There has also been some suggestion in Malaysia that a couple of businessmen who know VT well have agreed to add 2 million towards transfers out of their own pocket "as a sign of support" ( unconfirmed, just my Malaysian friend who has become a City supporter ). This is what i mean. Some of these guys talk about a million as pocket money.
Just a quick addition after seeing the comment about Chelsea and the USA...First, people over here are far more knowledgeable about football clubs and football in general. Every Saturday night 90% of the population find somewhere to watch football....even when their team is not playing!! Get in a taxi, and the driver will know the players. I had a taxi driver tell me why Bothroyd should never have been picked for England...incredible really. Also Asians have a different conception of support. If you are rich, you must behave as being rich, people must know you are rich. You should be respected because you are rich. This often leads to people making personal contribution to organizations to show they are wealthy and generous. If we tap into that we will get personal contributions that will absolutely amaze you. All Cardiff will have to do is be very nice to these people and give them the best seats when they visit.
