Vincent Tan is Coming to MLS
By Jimmy Lee
You know how annoying it can be sometimes to get constant notifications on your phone?
Well today at about 11:45 am Pacific Time, right as the Champions League matches were about to kick off, I got a notification that almost made me bust out laughing in the middle of work.
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Bleacher Report sent me a notification that Vincent Tan will be a part of the group to purchase Chivas USA. Yes, the Vincent Tan who owns Cardiff City, the one who re-branded a club who has been in existence since 1899, the one who wears a collared shirt under his jersey and pulls his pants up to just under his nipples, the one who leaked the horrible text messages from former Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay. Yes, that very same Vincent Tan.
Praise all things holy. Vincent Tan is coming to MLS.
As reported by Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl, Tan will be a part of the group purchasing the soon to be history Chivas USA. Yes, the Goats have been a disaster almost since they joined the league in 2004, but if you are one of the few die-hards, I don’t know if today is a day to rejoice or cry.
First things first. Chivas USA will cease to exist after the 2014. A second LA-based MLS team will reemerge as a expansion team at the start of the 2017 season.
And then what will happen? Well who the heck knows. With Vincent Tan at the helm, your guess is as good as mine.
No wait, I’m actually gonna make a guess. I envision a team wearing red jerseys with a dragon on the crest. Why would I imagine this? Because that’s exactly what he did to Cardiff City.
Vincent Tan is no stranger to re-branding a team. He does it even when it’s not wanted by the fans. I think everyone is willing to admit that the Chivas USA experiment was a failure. He and the rest of his ownership group will have two long years to plan before they come into the league in 2017.
But Cardiff City? No one was begging for a re-branding of this club from Wales which is more than a century old. What Tan did was not only re-branding, it was borderline blasphemy.
Cardiff City played in a blue kit since the early 1900’s. Along comes Vincent Tan and… bang! Now Cardiff is wearing red because in his native Malaysia it is considered to be fiercer or something like that. Changing from blue to red is basically the same as changing from a man to a woman. It is that drastic of a change. Think about some of the biggest rivalries. Liverpool plays in red, Everton plays in blue. Manchester United Plays in red, Manchester City plays in blue. Arsenal plays in red, Chelsea plays in blue.
So why the heck would Vincent Tan change a team from blue to red? Who in the world knows? Well maybe Vincent Tan does.
He not only changed their color, but he also changed the shield. Cardiff City traditionally had blue bird on the logo. Their nickname was “The Bluebirds”. Again, along comes Tan and… bam! The shield now has a very large red dragon and a little tiny, almost invisible bluebird.
Despite the changes he made to the look of the team, he did manage to bring the club into the Premier League for one season before being relegated immediately. That one season may have been full of losing, but it never lacked for excitement and drama.
Oh Vincent Tan, what more can I say? Luckily for me, as an observer of the entire process and not as a fan, I can sit back and enjoy this very entertaining addition to MLS. The 2017 season cannot come soon enough. I cannot wait for the hilarity to ensue as he brings for his love for red to America.