An idea most people thought must be a hoax is evidently being held back for a more convenient time, judging by what is left once you scrape away the jargon and the claptrap and realise Cardiff's promise not to rebrand, after 104 years of wearing blue, has been strategically worded so the guarantee lasts only next season.
Men of wealth have a habit of getting their own way, especially those on the Forbes billionaires' list, and if Cardiff's majority shareholder, Vincent Tan, and his Malaysian associates really want a colour scheme to demonstrate "the symbolic fusion of Welsh and Asian cultures", the chances are it will happen eventually.
A team's colours, badge and nickname should surely count as more than marketing tools, or a rich man's plaything, when supporters regard them as the most important parts of a club's identity. Cardiff have worn blue for all but the first nine years of their existence, from 1899 to 1908. Just like Bill Veeck could make Chicago White Sox wear shorts during the 1976 baseball season. And just like Cardiff's owners can have the team turning out in polka dots next season if they so wish.
Hyde United did something similar, in collaboration with Manchester City, a couple of years ago. They were skint – bucket-collection skint – and City needed somewhere for their reserves to play. So City agreed a £75,000-a-year package to ground-share until 2013. Hyde dropped the "United" from their name and City paid £250,000 for a rebrand – that word, again – of the ground. Ewen Fields, once several shades of red, now has shiny blue seats. City sponsor the kit and own the advertising boards and Hyde have just been promoted to the Blue Square Premier. Tradition? Without City's money, the alternative for Hyde would be barely worth thinking about.
City might not even have existed had Sir Matt Busby and Manchester United been more receptive when a Maine Road director, Frank Johnson, suggested a merger in 1964. Johnson was willing to demolish City's ground to move into Old Trafford and had already suggested the Football League split into north and south sections. Gary James's Manchester, A Football History sums up the episode perfectly: "As with many periods of football history, it appears some directors were totally out of touch with what fans themselves wanted."
City are not alone on that count, otherwise Len Shackleton's autobiography would never have had that blank page for the chapter entitled "The Average Director's Knowledge of Football". The 83-page A New Model for Partnership in Football makes extraordinary reading even now, with different sections on branching into financial services, the fashion industry, telecommunications and even bringing out a range of Citycars. The idea, in short, was to develop "the Virgin of Asia and the world".
Thank goodness really for the Football Association's Rule 96L, forbidding clubs from changing names, because if there was not such a condition how long before we had the equivalent of Technogroup Welshpool Town FC?
As for Cardiff, perhaps the most galling part is the emotional blackmail at play when, for adopting the new colour scheme, the sweetener is reputedly £100m of Malaysian investment.
Paul Hunt certainly raised some relevant points in his letter to the club's owners in December, leaked the day after relegation was confirmed and followed, within 48 hours, by his entirely coincidental sacking as deputy chief executive.
Increasingly, this is becoming a key role in football, as Liverpool can testify after all the column inches devoted to the way they mismanaged the Luis Suárez case. At Blackburn, meanwhile, the press officer, Paul Agnew, is being talked about as a contender to take over from Hunt in the next phase of the Venky's era. This is football's equivalent of Monty Python's Silly Party.