Cardiff's owner Vincent Tan has said that the success the club enjoyed under Malky Mackay was due to luck rather than good management.

"He didn't do very well at Watford but somehow our CEO and our chairman hired him and replaced Dave Jones," Tan said. "Dave Jones actually did much better.

"So I think Malky got lucky when he came to Cardiff. I invested a lot of money and then we went up. Do you think that Malky would have got us promoted without my investment?"

Tan dispensed with the promotion-winning Mackay after a dispute over transfers – currently the subject of a legal action – just one of the measures he has taken that have made him hugely unpopular with fans.

"Earlier on I was generous enough to give our football management too much authority and they went berserk," he told the BBC. "They went and did bad business. That was a mistake.

"But now I'm involved, I know the value and I study. Every business I don't know, if I spend enough time – a couple of months – I will know a lot. I know quite a lot about football now. I know the value of players and we won't do stupid things."

Another unpopular decision was to change the club's colours from their traditional blue to red, though the Malaysian businessman insists that he retains the backing of the majority of fans and believes he has been given a rough ride by the press, who he branded "a little bit racist".

"Overall, even now, I think, I would say even 90% of the fans are supportive, the problem is you have 10% or 5% or maybe even a few hundred people that are not supportive, who are more vocal," he said. "And then you have the British press who have has been misled by some people, feeding them wrong information and saying what a terrible person I am and trying to make fun of me and paint me like a villain.

Tan has proved unpopular with Cardiff fans, not least for changing their shirts from blue to red. Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Action Images

"But my experience is the majority are very supportive. I go to the club, many people come and shake my hand, want to shake hands with me, want my autograph, so generally I think it is not too bad.

"I will say that the British press is unfair and maybe they are unfair because we didn't tell our side of the story that well. And sometimes the British press are maybe a little bit racist and quite unfair."

Mackay was dismissed in December amid claims from Tan that he vastly overspent in the summer. The chief executive Simon Lim recently released a statement criticising the £8.5m signing of the striker Andreas Cornelius, who left the club in January after not scoring a goal.

Mackay has since been replaced by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who has yet to prove a good signing, with the club only one point above bottom-placed Fulham in the Premier League. Tan, who bought the club in 2010, said: "Although we're not doing very well now, we are in the relegation zone, I'm convinced and believe that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will be able to keep us in the Premier League."

Despite the criticism, Tan insists he is in it for the long haul at Cardiff and believes that eventually the fans who are against him will change their view. "The club would have gone bust many times if I had not been around," he said. "I made a decision and when I make a decision to do something I want to stick by it and see it through to the end and make it a success. And likewise the same for Cardiff.

Tan's hiring of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has so far proved unsuccessful, with five defeats in seven league games. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

"We were going through some difficulties, we had the wrong people doing things for us but I think we will get it right. And I think when this thing is over, fans will understand and they should regret what they have done to me and maybe some of them should apologise to me."

Tan insisted that the club's colours would not be changing back to their traditional blue, which prompted Mark Cooper from the Cardiff City Supporter's Trust to say he felt the owner was being purposely divisive.

"I think he's coming out and trying to divide the fanbase when actually the thing that Cardiff City need is them to all get behind the team given where we are in the league," he said. "Everything he seems to have said today with regards to the club's colours in the future, talking about Malky in the way that he has, is going to divide the fanbase even more than it is already. I think he's got that percentage wrong before, I think 90% are more likely to be against what he is doing than would be for it."