Burnley FC blog: Clarets feeling blue for rivals Cardiff (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Burnley FC blog: Clarets feeling blue for rivals Cardiff

1:50pm Thursday 7th June 2012 in Burnley FC blogs By Suzanne Geldard, Burnley FC reporter

EVERY football club, and fan, wants success – but where do you draw the line to achieve it?

Would you be prepared to change your colours and your badge if it meant benefiting from the mega millions that have now become practically a prerequisite of competing at the top level?

That’s the moral football dilemma that Cardiff City supporters are now having to tussle with. Do they accept being held to ransom and selling their soul for foreign investment? Or do they make a stand?

There is little love lost between Burnley and their Championship rivals – the club formerly known as the Bluebirds (now the Dragons) – but there has still been an outpouring of sympathy from East Lancashire at Cardiff’s dramatic and enforced change of identity.

At Malaysian billionaire owner Vincent Tan’s behest Cardiff’s home shirt will be red next season, and their original Bluebird emblem dwarfed by a Welsh dragon.

The idea was met with derision when it was floated a couple of weeks ago, and seemed to be put on the backburner following the backlash. But we should have known that a man who is thought to be pumping £100million into the club would get his own way and to hell with the consequences.

It has not just sent shockwaves through the Valleys but throughout football. It has even prompted a response from professional footballers who aren’t even connected with the club.

Former Burnley loanee Jack Cork tweeted: “Wow can’t believe Cardiff City actually changed to red kits!! Be interesting to see if it works for them.”

One Clarets fan described the situation as “soul destroying” adding that if Burnley ever went down the same route he could no longer support the club.

It would be interesting to see if that determined stance faltered if the outcome was a return to the Premier League.

Burnley did, of course, change from green to their famous claret and blue, but that was back in 1910, when superstition, not money, was their motive after Aston Villa won the league.

Tan sees red as a winning colour, and more marketable in Malaysia. Had Cardiff not gone along with his demands he might not have been forthcoming with his funds.

But what price can you put on more than 100 years of tradition? And is it a price worth paying?

Call me old-fashioned – naive even – but I think not.

Many Burnley fans will be against the anticipated sale of Jay Rodriguez, but at least it’s a more organic means of sustainability.

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