Inside track on Cardiff City FC

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Cardiff City have received a bid of approximately £4m for midfielder Gary Medel, it is from a Turkish club which I believe is Besiktas. If City accept this offer then it will be a huge loss financially on a player who cost the club in the region of £11m last summer.

Ole hopes and expects to announce his 5th summer signing by the end of this week and is targeting the centre back and midfield positions as his priority.

The club shop suffered badly over the course of last season and I was told this week that takings were down by £1.5m compared to the season previous when we won the Championship. For what should have been a record breaking season of merchandise sales, City fans decided against buying official gear in their thousands, this was despite any clothing or kit that was blue sold out but such was the limited stock of blue items it didn’t help the club shop sales in making greater sales than the previous season.

The board are hoping that we will average 21,000 crowds next season and have budgeted the next campaign on that size crowd.

Going back some 16 months to the Brighton home game that became infamously known as ‘scarf-gate’, it was Vincent Tan’s decision to hand the scarves out as he was impressed by the way Liverpool fans hold their scarves aloft on The Kop, Tan loved the visual so much so that he believed City fans would do similar at the CCS.

It was announced this week that Dick Bate left his position as Academy manager and I understand that Bate left his role two months ago, Bate and Craig Bellamy had a falling out last season and as a result Bate left the club.

Kevin Cooper has left his position as U21/Development coach and I am told that Bellamy was offered the position but he turned down the opportunity to take the role.

Secretary Nick Alford is leaving the club, Alford oversaw the players contracts and would be present when contracts were completed and signed off to complete a transfer, it seems this a fall out from the Malky/Moody situation that engulfed our season in the Premier League.

900 season tickets had been sold for the new upper tier in the Ninian Stand, with some cancelling their season tickets and others requesting to move back to seats in other parts of the ground, I am told that just approximately 500 season tickets are currently situated in the new tier.

The completion date for the new tier is July 15th and they are just a few days behind schedule with a revised date of July 18th currently in place.

New Tier http://www.cardiffcityforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=142709

Season tickets will go back on sale next month.

The five players that are receiving the most enquiries and a couple have received bids are David Marshall, Steven Caulker, Gary Medel, Jordon Mutch and Fraizer Campbell, Ole and his staff will be pleased if they can keep two of the five as it is expected no matter what the club do three of these will most probably leave namely Caulker, Medel and Campbell.

Marshall has told the club he is happy at the club, his family are settled in the area and he is not pushing for a move.

Ole will do everything he can to try and keep Mutch at the club and sees him as an integral part of his plans.

To end on a good note and positive news, our club have no plans to make cuts of contracted match day staff including the stewards and support staff despite the expected drop in attendances.

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