Ee May Lee, The Malaysian Insider
At a time when our Prime Minister touts that the government is doing all it can to curb our spiraling deficit, it seems puzzling that they were more than eager to splurge RM15 million to aid Vincent Tan in his sponsorship for Cardiff City.
Furthermore, when queried over why our government was willing to waste RM15 million of taxpayer’s money on this, Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz stated that the deal covering one season would help the ministry gain global “publicity and public relations” benefit and to attract high-end tourists from the United Kingdom and other Western European nations to Malaysia.
However, instead of achieving the latter, Vincent Tan’s latest stunts at Cardiff City only brought embarrassment to our country. With Twitter trends like #TanOut, a huge lambast by Liverpool FC manager and even non-Cardiff City fans protesting against Vincent Tan, this debacle serves to smear the name of Malaysia more than it has to aid it.
The first action by Vincent Tan that angered the Welsh fans was changing the club's crest and jersey colour from blue to red. Vincent Tan does not understand what football means in British culture. It is not merely a hobby or an interest as it is in Malaysia. To the British, football is a serious way of life, a sense of belonging and an integral part of an association.
What Vincent Tan did by stripping away the blue and replacing it with red, and changing the club's crest to a dragon was entirely overturning the very identity of the club. He showed absolutely no respect for the culture, history and interest of Cardiff City FC and its fans.