Cardiff City to be re-branded

Cardiff City FC called a meeting with its supporters club tonight, with chief executives and the owners over plans for a brand change. Changes include;

-Home kit will now be red and away kit blue (Owners see Red as national colour of Asia and Wales, associated with success, referring to Arsenal, Liverpool, Utd etc..)
-Badge will be changed, with a red dragon to represent Wales and Asia, Cardiff City along the top with a motivational statement along the bottom
-Bluebirds nickname will be dropped in favour again of the Cardiff Dragons, due to a greater chance of cracking the Asia market
-Over 100m of investment over the coming seasons. Covering: Increase in stadium capacity from 26,000-36,000, investment in squad in the summer transfer window, state of the art training facility base with seating to be changed from blue to red

Needless to say Cardiff fans are not happy with this. Rather the new investment be stuffed where the sun don't shine rather than have their tradition destroyed.

What do you think of this then. Modern owners once again causing troubles with traditions at their respected clubs. Startling thing is they believe playing in red automatically gains success.

martyr_94 wrote:Cardiff City FC called a meeting with its supporters club tonight, with chief executives and the owners over plans for a brand change. Changes include; ........

-Bluebirds nickname will be dropped in favour again of the Cardiff Dragons, due to a greater chance of cracking the Asia market

Needless to say Cardiff fans are not happy with this. Rather the new investment be stuffed where the sun don't shine rather than have their tradition destroyed.

What do you think of this then. Modern owners once again causing troubles with traditions at their respected clubs. Startling thing is they believe playing in red automatically gains success.

Meanwhile in a bit to outflank Cardiff, West Ham have announced that their chant "Come on you Irons" will be replaced by "Come on you Plastics" in a bid to conquer China..... So much for tradition

I always liked Cardiffs blue kit

Rebranding for the Asian audience???! It's fecking Cardiff for God's sake!! You can't polish a turd and this attempt at rolling it in glitter is an absurdity doomed to fail. 99% of Cardiff's support will be from locals, non-local Welsh and Welsh ex-pats - and the club are going to turn their back on them and totally insult their heritage...!

On the bright side, if Hazard comes out and says he's now playing in red next year now, well know where he's going

I double checked the date of the report.
How is it not April 1st?
What date is April Fools in Asia?

Its off guys anyway. However, they've basically turned around and said the cardiff fans are putting their club in danger because they continue to make losses every month, and this move would have seriously boosted revenue for the club. It s a fine line with maintaining tradition and moving with the times, times where clubs are literally just staying afloat.

I know why people get annoyed, but logically it's a sound idea, and the colour Red does have more of an association with Wales, and if it makes the club more money I can understand why all these changes would be made. There isn't sentimentality for the owners.

I just saw this on the Welsh news, now that the Cardiff fans have thrown their toy's out of the pram over this, they might not even have a team to support. At the end of the day it was only a colour, and their tantrum has now cost them a coll 100 millions samolians. Oh well, you can always watch them in their blue tops in the league of Wales.

On the other hand there is a lot to be said for maintaining your history and heritage and NOT allowing your club to become the plaything of some faceless individual / consortium, who simply sees the club as a revenue stream.

My club Middlesbrough have had to drastically cut their operating costs, including slashing the wage bill, over the last 2-3 seasons and we've managed to achieve a level of financial stability, while maintaining our league status.

It is difficult, but possible.

We've benefitted from having around £30million worth of debt written off because our chairman is a local (the same guy who saved us from liquidation in 1986) and a fan, who actually cares about the club. Not some foreign businessman who would rather asset strip the club for whatever he could get. He is also still putting around £12million of his own money into the club every year.

That might sound like a lot, but its something he can live with and at least we are a long way from the threat of administration, which was a distinct possibility a couple of seasons ago, given the amount of debt we were in.

In a nutshell, the key to survival is prudence and living within your means.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18324804

HERSH wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18324804

Reminds me a lot of Wrexham's colours/dragon imagery. Wonder if they were consulted about a bigger club potentially stepping on their toes, image-wise.

Actually, if these people really wanted a Welsh club that plays in red and has a dragon on the badge, Wrexham was there and crying out for investment. But they wouldn't have made as much money from a non-league side, so trampling on traditions it is.

Cardiff City's owners have announced that the 'Bluebirds' will now be playing in red, with a new badge and will be nicknamed the Red Dragons ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18324804


Say what you will

Meh, I really liked the blue kits. Though I suppose you can't complain given the cash promised

The cash isn't that much though all things considered - £15m will go to pay off the debt to Sam H (the old owner), then once other debts are serviced the majority of the money will go on expanding the stadium and rebranding/marketing the team in Asia - leaving maybe £10m for players and marketing in Cardiff/surrounding areas (which will be needed to convince current and the 5-8k of new fans needed to fill the bigger stadium).

They'll need a lot more than that to get and stay in the Prem (a Huge amount more) considering they aren't the type of club to build slowly with small signings with a Big team commitment like Swansea/Norwich

It's also strange that they'll be playing in red and nicknamed the Red Dragons as there's already a team in Wales nicknamed the Red Dragons who play in red - who just happen to have a dragon on their badge...

Paying off debt gives a fresh cash flow though.

Graeme Swann's Cat wrote:Paying off debt gives a fresh cash flow though.

True, but turning off your main customers - increasing the likelihood of poorer attendances, while saddling yourself with a much bigger/costlier stadium. And at the sametime diverting some of the money saved from the absence of the debt to (what will have to be) a massive marketing campaign to inform the Asian market that Cardiff City actually do exist and they should support Cardiff and it's rich footballing history that up until now (shh) has been in blue.

Some good points there Smirnoff.

I guess the coming season will be the acid test of the loyalty of your fanbase. Personally I'd be horrified if my club sold their heritage and tradition, chasing foreign investment.

We were in a fair amount of debt up until last season and are still losing money every month. What we did was to drastically reduce the club's operating costs, reduce the playing staff and wage bill (as well as our ambitions). We're still reportedly making a £1m loss per month, but fortunately our chairman is able to cover this.

I'm not convinced by the strategy of trying to appeal to Asian football fans. Its one thing if you're Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal or Chelsea, with a history if winning trophies...but Cardiff?

I wish Cardiff the best of luck, but I do wonder how long the patience of your new owners will last if success doesn't come soon.

It's a good point about the owners patience - as Cardiff could well find they've sold their soul and have been sold and find themselves in League 1 having p!ssed off some of their die hard fans.

PS I'm not a Kaardiff fan, I support Wrexham and Arsenal for a variety of reasons. (another reason why I'm annoyed as these Malaysians are just taking part of Wrexhams identity and supergluing it onto Cardiff's

Smirnoffpriest wrote:It's a good point about the owners patience - as Cardiff could well find they've sold their soul and have been sold and find themselves in League 1 having p!ssed off some of their die hard fans.

PS I'm not a Kaardiff fan, I support Wrexham and Arsenal for a variety of reasons. (another reason why I'm annoyed as these Malaysians are just taking part of Wrexhams identity and supergluing it onto Cardiff's

As soon as I saw pictures of the new kit/badge, I immediately thought of Wrexham. I'm a Mansfield fan though so maybe Wrexham are more prominent in my thoughts than those of supporters of higher level clubs. I posted it in another thread here (perhaps they could be merged).

https://www.606v2.com/t28840-cardiff-city-to-be-re-branded#1280708

Glad someone agrees with me.

The badge should say "EST 2012".

I think we're of the same mind

I have asked a moderator to merge the articles, to be honest I didn't see yours or would have commented on it.