[Archived] Venky's Takeover Complete

[BuckyRover]

Bye.

[Tom]

my earlier post was deleted with no explanation...this takeover stinks.

The Trust have put plenty in but the Trust beneficiaries wanted more out. We have been taken over by people who have NO history of supporting BRFC or having any love for the Club in the way that many posters on BRFCS do. If it goes belly up they will be out and leaving us in the cack as quick as I can say "Dingle Barsteward".

I expect to be hauled under the mainsail for saying I am against the Venkys takeover but personally I believe this is sh1t.

But what other option was there? The trust wanted rid and Venky's were apparently the most suitable suitors, Rover's fans weren't exactly queueing up to buy us!

Edit: Why you saying Bye Bucky?

[Wing Wizard Windy Miller]

Hopefully, once John Williams gets to work with Mrs Desai, these early hiccups will get sorted out.

n the other hand, I see any involvemet by Kentaro in the decision making over recruitment selection, remuneration and management of the club's football side as a very rapid one-way route to utter disaster.

Fair enough.

Feels so frustrating.... we wait ages for a takeover and then it all seems to go wrong from day one. Lets hope it's an early blip.

[Steve Moss]

Venky's Ewood? Oh no, please, no.

It might make sense from a commercial standpoint, but I really don't like it at all.

What is the big deal with Venky's Ewood? The word "Ewood" is still in the name. Tradition is being continued. I would be worried about owners who did not maximize their marketing opportunities as it would demonstrate a lack of financial sense.

And pouring cold water over massive financial investment into the Rovers is also encouraging. We have a good squad. We need a few positions filled and we'll have an excellent squad. Prudent investment will do wonders for the club. Mrs. Desai seems prudent. And from what little they have said, Venky's will attempt to improve the Rovers' marketability and financial opportunities.

And she wants to bring an Indian player in the team. So what? If I had a billion or two and bought the Rovers, I'd want a member or two of the US National Team on the team. And her intentions, test Indian youngsters and bring them over to the Academy for training and establishing an Indian training ground is prudent. She isn't rushing anything and apparently wants the Indian to meet standards before he plays for the Rovers.

The Rovers touring India is an excellent idea. It is a subcontinent full of potential football fans. We should be snapping up more than our share of that potental fan base ASAP. That translates into more name recognition for the Rovers which translates into more cash in the coffers.

All in all, I'm optimistic. Let's see what happens.

Like most women, she just does not know when to button it, irrespective of who are targets maybe, I can see a few ears being bent in the next few days.

Mrs. Desai appears to be talking a lot of sense, from my perspective. Long may she do so. The stability that comes with a completed takeover, where jobs are confirmed as secure, as opposed the speculation fueled chaos, should improve team morale and, by implication, improve performance. Let's see if she is right before we critique the comment.

[Torgeir]

my earlier post was deleted with no explanation...this takeover stinks.

The Trust have put plenty in but the Trust beneficiaries wanted more out. We have been taken over by people who have NO history of supporting BRFC or having any love for the Club in the way that many posters on BRFCS do. If it goes belly up they will be out and leaving us in the cack as quick as I can say "Dingle Barsteward".

I expect to be hauled under the mainsail for saying I am against the Venkys takeover but personally I believe this is sh1t.

Like you I will always want what is best for the club. In this case I don't have the knowledge to determine whether Venky's buying the club is good or bad. However, I think we can all agree that a takeover is a requirement for a continued stay in the top flight.

If it does indeed stink, and you were right about your assumptions, then you will hopefully still have the luxury of supporting Rovers - even if it is in the lower leagues.

[AggyBlue]

Bye.

Don't do it Bucky.

Football is all 'ups' and 'downs'. We don't know which way we are going yet.

[67splitscreen]

Mrs. Desai appears to be talking a lot of sense, from my perspective. Long may she do so. The stability that comes with a completed takeover, where jobs are confirmed as secure, as opposed the speculation fueled chaos, should improve team morale and, by implication, improve performance. Let's see if she is right before we critique the comment.

Agreed,when talking the price of a pound of chicken, the marketing, sponsorship and future developments, fine, the financial side of the deal is a different matter.

I get the impression, and even more so since Philip's post that she is letting her tongue wag just a little to much, the breakdown of cost for instance, why go into such detail, a round figure for the shares and debt and 5m for layers would have done for the press and the fans for now.

This 15m for the club betterment need not have been mentioned, God knows what speculation it will raise.

[AggyBlue]

But what other option was there?

Why didn't the trust just put the shares on the open market? We all could have bought some then.

They could have paid off the debts, spent on the team and put £50M worth of shares on the market. Why did they need to sell lock, stock and barrel?

Is that too simplistic

[Eddie]

Did she attend an IIT?

[doctorryan]

Do you think Arsenal fans are crying about moving from Highbury to the Emirates?

No. Because they see it as a positive for the club.

FFS

How many trophies have Arsenal won since the move?

As for profits, they were doing fine on Avenell Road, thank you.

And to think it was all so that they could compete with the Chelseas & Reals of the world........

[Damage]

Message to our new owners .......

after 20years as a season ticket holder I am no longer a supporter and am now officially a consumer. I hope you have a product that I will be tempted to buy.

[doctorryan]

Here's a pic of our new boss, The Colonel, with someone we may need help from in the not too distant future.

[Seedstral]

Message to our new owners .......

after 20years as a season ticket holder I am no longer a supporter and am now officially a consumer. I hope you have a product that I will be tempted to buy.

Ha ha good riddance then so much for following your team through thick and thin!!

[47er]

Here's a pic of our new boss, The Colonel, with someone we may need help from in the not too distant future.

Physician heal thyself

[doctorryan]

Physician heal thyself

I'm fine baby. You go patronize somebody else.

[Paul]

I'm no fan of foreign ownership of football clubs and have deep concerns related to how the game has changed in 15 years and how it seems the landscape will change again as a result of this takeover. My view is currently complete indifference to our new ownership, by which I mean I am neither positive or negative in my feelings. I don't know what to expect and IMV none of us can know anything.

Despite this I'm begining to feel some sympathy for the new owners and the position they find themselves in. It's clear, and I heard this from a good source, VH were told to keep quiet about their intentions during the pre-sale period. Frustrating but probably good advice given to them. Now, within hours of completing the takeover, the Indian media is awash with quotes and statements from the family. Interesting there is very little in the British press which tells us where we stand and perhaps underlines where Venky's will take us in the future.

Philip has already said, and this is a point I fully agree with, the difference between our use and the Indian use of the same language is enormous. Again as Philip rightly says any utterance in India will be in Blackburn within minutes. As Blackburn Rovers fans we have a greater interest in analysing every word trying to understand what is to happen to the club. The audience Venky's speaks to has no such concerns, to them it matters little. Venky's have made some potentially outrageous statements in the last 24 hours, enough to fill a page of rantings about why this is all very bad news for the club. I think much of this is with the best intentions but back in Lancashire "translates" very poorly.

I hope someone speaks to them soon, explains the need for real clarity and has the wisdom to allow John Williams to explain what is happening at Ewood. I didn't want foreign ownership of Rovers, now it has happened I'd like to set off in the best possible way which means learning the press utterances since the takeover read very badly in this part of Lancashire. I hope Venky's appreciate very quickly just how much they have to learn about our football club and its support.

Williams has been so very important to the club in recent years, he is going to be absolutely crucial to Venky's.

I pray we don't get any sort of hand waving parade on the pitch today.

[philipl]

Paul, this latest profile from India perfectly illustrates the point.

It says Rovers will be down once a year which means the club will visit India annually- not get relegated every season.

Also Venky's Edwood Park.

[Stuart]

I'm at a bit of a loss as to the benefit to Rovers (even as an investment) of changing the stadium name to Venky's Ewood. Is it simply an advertising hoarding so that Richard Keys can mention their name to sky sports viewers?

Maybe I'm bring a bit slow but it suggests to me a lack of intention to make money out of Rovers and use us solely to advertise their core business. Otherwise it would surely have been better to sell the stadium naming rights to a third party and generate so income that way.

My fingers are still very much crossed about this one!

[Beta Ray Bill]

Just curious if anyone knows what the views on ownership, or even the visibility of ownership, was say 50 years ago.

Was it that clubs existed and apart from the manager none knew (cared?) about anything other than the players? Or was there the clarity and interest there is today, just with slower information flows?

[philipl]

I'm at a bit of a loss as to the benefit to Rovers (even as an investment) of changing the stadium name to Venky's Ewood. Is it simply an advertising hoarding so that Richard Keys can mention their name to sky sports viewers?

Maybe I'm bring a bit slow but it suggests to me a lack of intention to make money out of Rovers and use us solely to advertise their core business. Otherwise it would surely have been better to sell the stadium naming rights to a third party and generate so income that way.

My fingers are still very much crossed about this one!

In one of the profiles it says they are open minded including being open to third party naming rights.

The problem everyone will have is that there appears to have been a series of different interviews given to different newspapers individually. People are not going to scroll back to pages 15 to 18 to go through them all and all kinds of urban myths will start to develop.

There is one fundamental culture change we will have to get used to.

We have moved from professional custodians to people who are free and uninhibited to show their excitement at being the owners of our great football club.

[Paul]

I'm at a bit of a loss as to the benefit to Rovers (even as an investment) of changing the stadium name to Venky's Ewood. Is it simply an advertising hoarding so that Richard Keys can mention their name to sky sports viewers?

Maybe I'm bring a bit slow but it suggests to me a lack of intention to make money out of Rovers and use us solely to advertise their core business. Otherwise it would surely have been better to sell the stadium naming rights to a third party and generate so income that way.

My fingers are still very much crossed about this one!

My guess is this. Venky's will, we hope, need methods of getting money into the club. Writing a cheque is not the answer, I gather it's already proving difficult to get all the cash to the Trust on time. If the club is family owned, or owned by another branch of the Venky empire it will be simpler to get money in to Rovers. The club sells the naming rights to Venky's and Venky's pays the bill. It will be a commercial transaction and viewed differently to just ploughing money into the club.

[47er]

I'm fine baby. You go patronize somebody else.

Wasn't patronising you, just reacting to a terrible post. You weren't patronising the VH boss of course were you?

[Paul]

Paul, this latest profile from India perfectly illustrates the point.

Working from that photograph Mrs Desai appears to be a much younger woman than I had imagined. The previous images I had seen suggested she was perhaps in her late 40s, this picture suggests she is much younger. Something I would view very positively. Do we know the ages of our new owners?

[broadsword]

What is the big deal with Venky's Ewood? The word "Ewood" is still in the name. Tradition is being continued. I would be worried about owners who did not maximize their marketing opportunities as it would demonstrate a lack of financial sense.

The name of the ground is Ewood Park, not f**king Venky's Ewood.

People start messing with my football club, I get annoyed.

How about changing the club's name to Blackburn Rajah's - what's the big deal, "Blackburn" will still be in the name?

[broadsword]

Ha ha good riddance then so much for following your team through thick and thin!!

If he's been a eason ticket holder for 20 years, then I guess he has?

i wouldn't say we were having a thin time of it now, compared to 20 years ago.