Tag Archives: Vincent Tan

Cardiff’s Demise Even More Satisfying Than That of Norwich City – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 14/05/2014 | 42 comments

Vincent Tan, contemplating his less-than-prolific ‘keeper

The football season is over for Leeds United – in truth, it has been for some weeks, certainly well before the league programme ended with that draw against Derby. So, the choice is between speculating about developments behind the scenes at Elland Road, or having a nice pleasurable little dance on a couple of old rivals’ graves. I’ve done my share of Leeds United speculation for the day – it looks like it’s time to get nasty then, and celebrate the downfall of two sets of fine, feathered friends in the Canaries and the Bluebirds.

If I could have had the privilege of selecting two out of three clubs to drop out of the Premier League this season, and join us down here among the dead men, then those two would have been Cardiff and Norwich. So, I got my own way – and I’ll be looking forward to a renewal of hostilities next season. In the Norwich case, my desire to see them fall is something I’ve gone into already, and all of my negative feelings around that scenario were directed really at the Canaries’ annoyingly chirpy fans who took such pleasure in their favourites recruiting three-quarters of our League One midfield. I’ve made myself suitably unpopular on their effeminately-named message board The Pink ‘Un, and that’ll do for me. I’ve no real problem with the club itself – I’m an admirer of Stephen Fry, and even old Delia Smith is good for a laugh, especially for that famously “tired and emotional” rallying call to the Ciddy fans – something that always brings me at least a smile, no matter how grumpy I might feel.

So much for Norwich. Cardiff is a rather more complex case – there are Leeds United reasons for my gladness to see them come tumbling back down after one solitary season out of their comfort zone, and they date back to a horrible afternoon of FA Cup combat followed by vile crowd scenes, whipped up by their idiotic then-owner Sam Hammam – an episode we need not revisit here. But there are wider justifications for my intense distaste for Cardiff City that have arisen only this season. They relate to the club’s current owner and dictator Vincent Tan – a man whose knowledge of football would fit comfortably inside a peanut – and yet one who arrogantly thinks he knows best about everything and is prepared to ride roughshod over tradition and supporter upset alike to have his own way.

The fact is that, despite historic grievances, my sympathy has been with the Cardiff fans ever since Tan marched in and started changing their club in an arrogant and unilateral fashion. He decided that success was more likely if the team wore a predominantly red strip – no matter that they’d always been associated with blue – the nickname “Bluebirds” is a relevant clue here. Tan also displayed his phenomenal knowledge of the sport by openly questioning the goalkeeper’s scoring record – presumably the club’s football professionals were too polite or intimidated to laugh in his face.

But then Tan surpassed himself. With Cardiff relatively comfortably placed in the Premier League, and wins over the likes of eventual champions Manchester City behind them, Tan decided that the manager who had realised the top-flight dream – Malky Mackay – was not, after all, good enough. The owner therefore proceeded to undermine, belittle and unsettle his manager at every opportunity over a period of weeks. Mackay was so clearly a dead man walking – so evidently doomed to lose his job – that obviously results began to suffer, and that early season work of consolidation began to unravel.

Eventually, the inevitable happened and Malky Mackay was out of a job. Some wise Championship club is going to get themselves a very good manager for zero compensation there (I wonder who it might be? Bleedin’ Norwich, probably). Tan, further exploiting his vast oceans of football knowledge, recruited Ole Gunnar Solskjær, who had known success in the Norwegian League, but who looked from the off like a rabbit caught in the headlights in the pitiless environment of the Premier League. Before too long under Solskjær’s inexperienced guidance, Cardiff were obviously doomed to go down. Defeat followed defeat, and Solskjær looked more clueless with every setback. The end, when it came, was no surprise to anyone who knew anything about football, and therefore probably an earth-shattering shock to the deluded and massively ignorant Vincent Tan.

What can most certainly be said about Cardiff’s relegation is that it is definitely A Good Thing. Not because it will discourage the incompetent likes of Tan from presuming that they know best, all the time, about everything – but because, if results had picked up after Mackay’s sacking, and Cardiff had somehow survived, this might have seemed to stand as a vindication of Tan’s ridiculous and bizarre methods – and that, whatever wounded Cardiff City supporters might currently be feeling, would not be good for the game.

The whole episode cries out for some protection of professional football men against the crazy whims of crass amateurs – although it’s highly doubtful that anything will happen, due to the inertia and complacency that characterises both the Football Association and the Football League. So Tan will presumably carry on in his own sweet way – and the rest of the game can only hope that real football people will avoid his club as they might a bad smell.

We welcome Cardiff City back to the Championship, and we look forward to our games against them. Leeds United’s recent record in those games is not particularly good – but perhaps there is less need to worry these days. It’s quite probable that, even now, Tan is looking for the most prolific goalscorer he can afford – and that we will see that bewildered young man in goal for the Bluebirds when we host them at Elland Road.

Let’s just hope it’s not Ross McCormack.

42 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged Cardiff City, Delia Smith, Leeds United, norwich city, The Pink'Un, Vincent Tan

Why Vincent Tan’s Crystal Palace ‘spying’ outburst stinks of desperation at Cardiff City

Posted on 11/04/2014 | 6 comments

An honest Cardiff fan’s clear-eyed view of owner Vincent Tan’s latest desperate tactic to help avoid a relegation he will have brought upon the club himself.

6 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged Cardiff City FC, Crystal Palace FC, desperation, Leeds United, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, relegation, spying, Vincent Tan

Should Cellino Take a Leaf out of Cardiff Owner Tan’s Book? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 04/03/2014 | 34 comments

Tan – fit & proper?

With the Leeds United takeover still dragging on and on, it’s possible to imagine that Massimo Cellino is taking a glance around the rest of English football – and wondering what he’s done so wrong that the game’s highly-respectable and august authorities appear to be wrinkling their noses at him.

Should he, for example, be following the example of Cardiff City owner Vincent Tan? Here is a man who has breezed into the club he’s bought and started treating it exactly like the plaything he obviously feels he’s acquired. Riding roughshod over supporters’ vehement objections, he’s now got the Bluebirds playing in red, he’s sacked the manager who did such a sterling job in getting them elevated to the Premier League for the first time since Noah was a lad – and he’s been heard disconsolately enquiring why the goalkeeper doesn’t score a few goals here and there. The latest Tan bright idea was to offer his players a £3.7m bonus to avoid relegation, an incentive swiftly withdrawn after it was pointed out to Vapid Vincent that this was illegal. Just to show they couldn’t be bought, his players went and lost at Spurs anyway. Cardiff were certainly struggling under Malky Mackay – as is only to be expected in that perilous first season up. But now, one ill-conceived managerial change later, they look doomed to relegation. Fit and proper? I wouldn’t want him at Leeds, thanks very much.

Allam – fit & proper?

Or there’s the chap at Hull City, Assem Allam. He doesn’t have much regard for history or tradition either. He’s not going to change the strip though, as Mr Tan so controversially did at Cardiff. No, Assem likes the strip, and he likes the Tigers nickname that goes with it. So much so, that he wishes to rename the club Hull Tigers, exposing their horrified fans to ridicule from the rest of the football fraternity. (Tigers, Tigers, rah, rah, rah!!) To those who protested, adopting “City till we die” as their rallying cry, kindly old Uncle Assem has commented: “they can die as soon as they want”. Fit and proper? Hmmmm.

Sullivan/Gold – fit & proper?

And further south still, we have those upright, downright pillars of the community who run West Ham – porn barons Sullivan & Gold. Their avowed mission, to provide prurient entertainment, salacious scandal and gorgeous, pouting tits by the barrow load to every UK breakfast table, has not caused even the slightest of ripples at the FA or Football League.

Cellino – de facto LUFC owner

Meanwhile, Massimo Cellino, having exchanged contracts with the useless GFH, is the de facto owner of Leeds United. He has kept us going through what appears to be a cash crisis which would have brought the club to the brink of administration and disaster, were it not for his financial support. Instead of going to the wall, United have been able to carry on, with Cellino paying off Enterprise Insurance – which has led to the sulky withdrawal of their petulant winding-up petition – paying the staff wages on time, funding the acquisition of two high-quality loan additions in the past fortnight and generally acting like a responsible – dare I say it? – fit and proper person to take Leeds United forward into a much more assured future – as compared to the last decade or so under a succession of potless chancers who the League appeared quite happy to see screwing things up.

Shaun Harvey – digging

Really – it’s almost as though the Football League, under that model of propriety Shaun Harvey, have a neat set of double standards and principles so flexible they might very well be called totally bent. All those dodgy geezers in charge of other clubs, and not an eyebrow raised anywhere until this latest Tan gaffe. And there’s poor old Massimo, doing his best, funding our skint club – and they seem to be digging deep for any excuse to tell him to get lost. Perhaps the King of Corn should be trying to emulate the Kings of Porn in order to gain this elusive acceptance. Perhaps he should change the Leeds United strip to pink with green spots, or start offering illegal bonuses à la Tan at Cardiff. Or maybe he could sweetly advise the denizens of the Gelderd End to accept a change of name to Leeds Peacocks, or end up sleeping with the fishes? Any of these seem to attract more official approval than the Italian’s current, inoffensive and supportive stance.

It does make you wonder – doesn’t it?

34 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged Assem Allam, Cardiff City FC, fit and proper, Football League, Hull City, Leeds United, Massimo Cellino, Shaun Harvey, Vincent Tan

The Lesson of Leeds United: Sort Out These Tyrant Owners – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 21/12/2013 | 23 comments

Bates: Irrelevant

Many times over the past few years I despaired of the future of my beloved Leeds United. It was a club dying under the not-exactly benevolent rule of one Kenneth William Bates, a man who had taken control at Elland Road almost 21 years after declaring his avowed intent to see the club banished from the Football League and sent into oblivion. This perhaps wasn’t the best recommendation for the supposed saviour of United (we heard repeatedly later of how he had saved Leeds at least once, and possibly two or three times).

The next seven years made you wonder whether the Bates reign had started with the breaking of a mirror in the Elland Road boardroom, although what followed was not so much bad luck as bad management, bad PR, bad taste – just every shade of bad you could possibly think of. Ken’s method of “saving” Leeds, involving as it did relegation to the club’s lowest ever league status, did not inspire confidence. Administration ensued, with record points deductions which saw an institution of the game in this country being hounded by their fellow league clubs who snarled and slavered as they were ranged against a hapless and helpless United. It was like watching a mortally-wounded lion being snapped at by a pack of degraded hyenas – or standing by, powerless and frustrated, as a beloved family member was beaten up by snarling thugs. It was simply horrible.

All in all, then, Bates’ potential as saviour looked more like that of a man who was determined to compass the demise of the club – and many were the reminders of his 1984 Chelsea-owning vow: ”I shall not rest until Leeds United are kicked out of the football league. Their fans are the scum of the earth, absolute animals and a disgrace. I will do everything in my power to make sure this happens.” Seven years under a Ken Bates thus motivated is a hell of a long time; for much of that period, things were bleak, grim and joyless around LS11. The peaks of success were achieved in spite of Bates, not because of him; promotion and a famous win at the home of the Champions in the FA Cup came against a background of player sales, transfer market impotence and managers hamstrung into a frustrated inability to do their jobs properly and effectively. Ken Bates was to Leeds United what Myxomatosis had been to the rabbit population of Australia; if he’d been left unchecked, the club may well have died. It was that serious.

Now of course, despite the odd white-bearded apparition seen slithering around in the vicinity of Elland Road, Ken Bates is gone from the club. It’s safe to pick up a programme again (and even a bit cheaper) – without having to bear the embarrassment of reading his latest rants against the fans (morons) or his business associates, nearly all of whom were either suing him or being sued by him – but at the club’s expense. No more Radio Bates FM, no more silly bloody notions of a Northern take on Chelsea Village. Gone and irrelevant, unlamented and destined (we devoutly hope) to leave no long-term mark on our beloved Leeds.

The legacy of Bates now is more intangible than material. Sure, there’s the cladding on the East Stand and a few vanity projects elsewhere in the stadium. But the true impact is on the fans; as a body we are now suspicious of owners, investors, saviours – yes, especially saviours. The fans know what they want, but for the current owners of Leeds United it’s a slow process winning their unqualified trust – even if their aims really are absolutely parallel to those of the frustrated and long-suffering United support. I write this with feeling; I’ve been as guilty as the next man of occasionally expressing doubts and reservations about where we’re heading under GFH, or under whatever the Consortium apparently on the brink of another takeover will call themselves. It’s just not easy to lose that suspicion which amounts almost to paranoia; it’s not easy to trust men who are, after all, businessmen wanting to show some return on their money. Trust will come, but more solid proof may be needed before everything in the garden is rosy.

Double jeopardy: Allam and Tan

Still, relative to certain other clubs, things are pretty good at Leeds United. We could be Hull, struggling against an embarrassing change of name being foisted by owner Assem Allam on unwilling supporters who want to be Hull City and not Hull Tigers (cringe). We could be Cardiff City, already suffering in red after they’ve been Bluebirds these many years. Of course these two clubs are in the Premier League, and that will mean a lot to their fans. But at what price? Would Leeds United fans accept an elevation which comes at such a premium? Red instead of White, or being known as Leeds Red Bulls even? What price tradition, pride, identity? I know how I’d feel – I’d fight such scandalous iniquities to my dying breath, and whatever the feelings of certain complaisant short-term glory seekers, I’m sure there’d be many thousands fighting with me. As things stand, we have to trust that our current and future owners do not intend to follow a Hull or a Cardiff route. If that trust were to be breached, things could get pretty hot for those gentlemen.

At times during the Bates era, I used to wish that something official could be done about him, to have him forcibly excised from our club. “Fit and proper?”, I’d think to myself, unable to understand how any governing body could accept this of such a transparently villainous and malicious, self-serving old curmudgeon. I saw managers depart and I knew they’d not had a fair chance. I used to hope that maybe the League Managers Association (LMA) would advise its members not to work for Bates, and force the issue that way. I doubt it would ever have come to that – too many peace-at-any-price merchants in those particular corridors of power. But that’s how desperate I felt, that’s how much I wanted rid. It’s just a year ago since the beginning of the end of Bates. What a very much happier year it has been.

Now, with things so much more positive around Elland Road, and with the promise of better things yet to come, I can feel some sympathy for fans – and managers – who are suffering under tyrants, much as we did. Particularly, I feel sympathy for Malky Mackay, the manager of Cardiff City who got them at last into the Premier League and whose reward is that he probably won’t be their manager for much longer. He’s been issued with a “resign or be sacked” ultimatum by owner Vincent Tan, a man whose football knowledge adds up to precisely zero. Still, having ruined the Bluebirds image, he feels qualified to criticise the coaching, tactics and transfer policy of a football man, a solid professional and a man of dignity and restraint in Mackay. This manager is a dead man walking and he must know it – but still, he’s travelled to Anfield with his team, hoping against hope that he can coax a performance out of what must be a bewildered, angry and confused group of players – at the daunting home of a formidable Liverpool side. And then, he’ll be gone. I fervently hope he sticks to his guns and refuses to walk, and I hope too that every penny of his contract is paid up to him. He will emerge with massive credit for a job well done; he will not be out of work for long.

If there are any hitches with the terms of his dismissal, though, the LMA should show it does have some teeth – and withdraw their members from availability for the Cardiff manager’s position. Maybe they should do that anyway, to show some solidarity and to demonstrate to Tan and the others like him that the cadre of football professionals will not be made to jump through hoops at the petulant whim of wealthy but clueless, spoiled and egotistical individuals who are just looking for a shiny toy to play with. I would love to see Tan in the position of having to manage his own football affairs. His players wouldn’t be able to perform for laughing. And after all, why should any honest professional, player, coach or manager want to work for such a man? Let him paddle his own canoe, and let him sink without trace. In the long run, it would even be better for the fans that way.

English football stands today in real danger of being dragged down to the level of certain other leagues throughout the world, where petulance and tantrums rule over sober judgement and the sanctity of professionalism. This is something that should be resisted, tooth and nail. As Leeds United fans, we feel a rivalry with pretty much any other set of fans anywhere, and an antipathy with several groups who don’t need naming here – but decidedly, Cardiff would be among that number. However, in this situation, I believe that solidarity and the greater interests of the game as a whole should transcend any mere club or fan rivalry. I’d be happy to stand alongside any Cardiff fans who wanted to protest about Tan and his treatment of a manager who has delivered a lifelong wish for them. I would be proud to stand four square with them, and chant and sing as lustily as any. Ultimately, no club is an island, and what can happen to one could happen to any or all. We have the thin end of an almighty big wedge here, and if something is not done soon, then we might be surprised at some of the changes that will be imposed on clubs that might appear impervious to such interference. And, of course, more good, honest managers like Malky Mackay will be humiliated in the press, and will lose their jobs at the whim of a megalomaniac who isn’t fit to run a pub quiz.

We at Leeds United should be as conscious of all this as anybody else. We were nearer to disaster than many would care to admit when the first rumblings of a takeover were heard halfway through 2012. And who knows what the future yet holds for Leeds? At the end of the day, the notorious truculence and militancy of the Leeds United support may yet be its biggest asset – especially if, as usual, the game’s various governing bodies turn out to be about as much use as a pet rock. So we need to stand ready at all times to look out for the interests of our club, which is so close to the hearts of so many of us. And in the meantime, we cannot afford to ignore the plight of our counterparts at other clubs. Solidarity and the will to organise and resist are immensely powerful forces if wielded wisely – as we found in our own fight against Bates, the will of the fans being, I believe, instrumental in giving impetus and direction to the takeover.

Let’s support the Hull and Cardiff fans where and how we can. Let’s see if we can’t apply some pressure, as an organised and cosmopolitan movement of fans, to bodies like the FA, the Football League, the Premier League, the PFA and last but not least the LMA. Maybe then the message would be brought home to Vincent Tan and similar tyrants that the game is bigger than them – bigger by far – and that their actions if seen to undermine the foundations of that edifice, will not be tolerated.

23 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged Cardiff City, Elland Road, Football League, Hull City, Ken Bates, League Managers Association, Leeds United, Malky Mackay, Premier League, The FA, Vincent Tan

Time to Do Away With Megabucks Ownership and Let Fans Run Clubs – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 20/12/2013 | Leave a comment

Vincent Tan: clueless

The time is fast approaching when the people who know what the game in this country is all about, are going to have to stand up and be counted. I mean, of course, the fans – and I write in the full awareness that too much standing up can lead to you being evicted from some of the more authoritarian clubs in the various leagues. But this type of standing up would be symbolic. It would send out a signal that we, the fans, have had enough of clueless owners and chairmen manking about with our game.

In the last week or so, it’s been carnage in the Premier League alone. Steve Clarke of West Bromwich Albion has been sacked, a decision that makes lighting that extra boiler to get a few more leagues of speed out of the “Titanic” seem like a model of sober judgement. Andre Villas-Boas has gone too, a victim of his club’s failure to hang on to their star performer from last season, Gareth Bale. Anyone who saw the look on the face of Danial Levy during Spurs’ 5-0 demolition by Liverpool would not have given much for AVB’s chances of avoiding the pre-Christmas axe. Meanwhile, up in Hull, battle-scarred old warhorse Steve Bruce is having to hide behind a sickly grin and pretend that it’s OK that Hull’s megalomanic owner, Assem Allam, is planning to trample all over the finer feelings of City’s support by forcing through a name change to Hull Tigers whilst inviting those who vociferously object to “die as soon as they like”. Tigers, Tigers, rah, rah, rah!

And now we have the news that Cardiff City’s clueless owner Vincent Tan has told his successful manager Malky Mackay – a hero to the Cardiff fans, and rightly so – to either resign, or be sacked. Presumably Mr Tan feels that Mackay has been interfering too much in team affairs, and not listening to the vast wisdom of one V. Tan Esquire. Who does this jumped-up little pro think he is, after all? Doesn’t he know whose toy Cardiff City is??

In truth, it’s beyond a joke already. Good, honest pros are at the mercy of clueless amateurs whose only qualifications to be where they are in the football hierarchy are a stuffed wallet and a fool’s ego. It’s way past time that somebody, somewhere, got a few people of common sense and influence together – or failing that, the likes of Bobby Charlton and Trevor Brooking would do – and set to discussing an alternative model for the game in England – before these spoiled, rich-kid charlatans ruin it beyond repair.

You wouldn’t have to look far to find that alternative model. Go East, young man – cast your eye and focus your thoughts across the North Sea and look how things are run in the Bundesliga of good old Deutschland. Wonderful stadia with safe standing, reasonable ticket prices, a fantastic league nurturing a successful national team – and the fans involved at every level, helping make the decisions that ultimately affect them, for the good of all – not just some bloated plutocrat with a brain full of damp rot and the arrogant belief that wealth justifies autocracy.

Football in this country has a long history of being in thrall to a clutch of well-to-do local businessmen, but at least there was a hint of democracy in the old-style board of directors. Now it’s CEO’s here and Directors of Football there, and all frantically knuckling their brows to whichever barmy billionaire sits on top of the whole creaky edifice. They say with power comes responsibility, but not in English football. No, sir. These people delegate the responsibility whilst hanging on to the power. They hire and they fire and then they do it all over again. As the process goes on, so the credibility of the game diminishes – what’s the reaction of the fan in the street when he hears that an excellent coach like Steve Clarke has been sacked before the season is half-over? Why, they laugh derisively, clearly unaware of the respect due to some stockbroker and investment banker who happens to own most of West Brom – despite being unburdened by any knowledge of the game.

Sadly, it looks nigh-on impossible to transform our game into anything resembling its efficiently-successful German counterpart. Too many vested interests, too much money involved – and far too many tender, fat, sleek egos which demand to be stroked and adored whilst being party to amateurish decisions that would shame a Tory minister. So it looks as though we’ll have to put up with what we’re reluctantly witnessing happen – and resign ourselves to the game here become ever more like the franchise system of American Football. Yay.

When’s the next home Ashes series, anyone?

Leeds Bête Noire Bates Replaced as Football’s Panto Villain by Hull’s “Doctor Death” – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 01/12/2013 | 3 comments

Smile on the face of the tiger – disgraceful Allam

Leeds United fans know all about how it feels to have your club owned by a man who makes your teeth curl up with embarrassment, someone who has only to open his mouth to reveal the yawning cavity inside his skull. Thankfully, Bates is now consigned to the dustbin of Elland Road history – give or take an outstanding court case or two – and the club can finally look forward to a future unencumbered by the whims and conceits of an irascible and unrepentant old man. Some will mourn the loss of one of football’s “characters”, but really – with characters like that, the game would swiftly lose the plot. And anyway, it seems that there is another of the Batesian ilk, making a bad name for himself over in the Far East, in that soon-to-be City of Culture, Hull.

Hull City owner Assem Allam could be seen on the TV earlier this afternoon, simpering away to himself as his team of tigers beat Mighty Liverpool, courtesy of two wild deflections and some truly appalling Scouse defending. The atmosphere at times was really quite deafening, the Hull fans – not noted for the passion of their support – belting out “City Till I Die” in a manner calculated to rock the rafters. Allam bore the look of a man who felt he had personally inspired such vociferous support – and in a way that was true. For Allam’s pre-match comment on the song rendered with such feeling by his club’s fans was that “I don’t mind ‘City till we die’. They can die as soon as they want, as long as they leave the club for the majority who just want to watch good football.” Not the most subtle of rebuffs for those City fans who are protesting against Allam’s proposed change of the club’s name to Hull Tigers. In fact some would say that they were the words of a man disposed to let his mouth work without any apparent connection to his brain; the words, in short, of an intemperate oaf. Most unsuitable for a future City of Culture. But Allam was not content with one yobbish sound-bite. He went further:

“How can they call themselves fans, these hooligans, this militant minority, when they disturb and distract the players while taking away the rights of others to watch the football, and of companies who have paid good money for advertising?

“If they want to express their feelings they are free to do so, either outside the stadium or pay to take [advertising] space.

“Seriously, they are welcome to talk to the stadium management about buying a space for a permanent banner, 10 times as big if they want. I am a supporter of democracy. I would have no issue with that.”

The City fans have organised themselves in an attempt to stop Allam from ripping away at their traditions and history in the name of tacky commercialism. They will have noted with dismay that the Cardiff City owner Vincent Tan has succeeded against the protests of that club’s fans in changing the teams colours from blue to red, leaving them with the humiliating spectacle of their beloved Bluebirds turning out, in effect, in a strip that is a betrayal of their long-standing identity. Tan’s regime is also now threatening the future of popular manager Malky Mackay; the fans see this as a step too far and are issuing stern warnings and organising protests against such folly.

There is a growing and worrying need for sets of fans to form action groups against various pieces of arrant folly on the part of people who have bought football clubs in the evident belief that they then have the right to do whatever they like with those clubs. The model appears to be based on the franchise system common enough in the States, where owners do have this licence to operate exactly as they please, even to the extent of closing down or relocating their toys, under a new identity and perhaps thousands of miles away. That’s just too horrible to contemplate for English football and, in the absence of any obviously helpful legislation to protect traditional interests, it does seem that the fans have little choice but to band together and get militant.

The conclusion is difficult to avoid that the game in this country has taken a wrong turning in making conditions so propitious for loaded foreigners to come in, buy their trophy clubs and then, with little or no understanding of the history and social impact of those clubs, set about bending them unrecognisably out of shape. It may be that Assam is not aware of how embarrassing the Hull City supporters find it when opposing fans mock them by singing “Tigers, Tigers, rah, rah, rah!” at them. But any football fan would completely understand that kind of humiliation – so why make things worse with a complete Tigers re-branding? Does Tan at Cardiff honestly have any idea of the impact a change from blue to red has had on the fans of that club? Of the stick that the fans will have had to take from their despised rivals in Swansea? It seems doubtful that these people, flush with cash and arrogance, either know or care.

Both Hull City and Cardiff City are currently proud members of the Premier League – so things could be worse. Both are doing OK as well. But if you asked me, as a Leeds fan: would I settle for success at the kind of price being expected of fans of the two City teams – then I’d have to say, resoundingly: NO. History and tradition count for a lot in football. This new wave of minted foreign ownership is set fair to suck the soul out of the game if the trend is allowed to continue. That then becomes a national cultural issue and – surely – some Government department should be sitting up and taking notice. And really, they should be taking notice now – and thinking about some possible protective action now as well. Otherwise we will be doing the usual futile thing of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. You can’t get much more uselessly British than that.

This footballing Tale of Two Cities is a definite pointer away from the creeping, insidious growth of clueless foreign ownership – and that’s not a xenophobic stance, it just so happens that most of the new owners are not from these Isles – which probably explains their lack of appreciation of just what the game here – and the fan culture – are all about. It will be far too late to do anything about it when someone like Allam or Tan – or indeed like Bates, who proves that arrogant idiocy is not simply a matter of foreign nationality – decides that Hull isn’t a good place for a football franchise, and relocates them somewhere else entirely, with a snazzy new name to attract untapped local support. It could easily happen – who speaks then for the disenfranchised Hull City fan of fifty years faithful support?

If we did move away from the current situation, we could do a lot worse than look to Germany, and their preferred system which relies heavily upon community-involved, supporter-owned football clubs which are part of the local fabric and represent the heart and soul of the fans. It works very well in Germany, and certain clubs elsewhere – notably Barcelona – benefit from a similarly democratic and inclusive situation.

Whatever the future brings, I wish the supporters of Hull and Cardiff all the best as they struggle to retain their clubs’ identities in the face of unsympathetic ownership structures. They will need all the luck and good wishes they can get – but if they succeed, it’s good for all of us – because it would send out a definite message that every football fan of every team should endorse: You’re welcome here, Mr Billionaire, and so is your money – but don’t you dare mess about with MY club.

Perhaps then, fan power would really have found its feet and organisations like IMUSA, LUST, and the protest groups at Hull, Cardiff and elsewhere can start to exercise a real and responsible on the game in this country. That, if you think about it, is what will be needed if we’re ever to give the People’s Game back to the rightful owners. And they are of course the people – us, the fans who love football and want to see it prosper – in the right way, the proper way, the traditional way.

Not – please note – as some rich guy’s toy to play with, break and then discard as a bored and spoiled child will tend to do. Messrs Allam and Tan, and all the others – be warned.