[Archived] Tom Finn Leaves Rovers

[Paul]

I guess it depends on what you believe and who you believe Paul, we've both been around here long enough to question peoples motives and take certain posts with a pinch of salt.

Quite agree

I've never in all my time on here read so many lies, lies and more lies about the ownership of the club, by people claiming to have the inside track on all things Blackburn Rovers. Question how the club is being run by all means, but don't claim you're being told this the top brass from within, when clearly you're not, that's the big difference here.

I presume you mean other posters by this because I have never claimed this to be the case for myself.

On to Wolves:

You got a £10 voucher, never before have the club offered an initiative such as this, and you're complaining about the fact you couldn't spend it! Come on Paul.

Exactly, and only on here could a free £10 voucher be used to hammer the owners, beggers belief for me

I'm not hammering the owners on this. I simply said I didn't meet anyone on the day who managed to use the voucher. I also said I couldn't imagine myself spending £10 on the type of food on offer at a football ground. I would no more spend £10 at MacDonalds, I just don't eat this type of food as I don't like it. I'd have had a coffee and chocolate bar if there was one. That's my only point.

[Exiled in Toronto]

I'd suggest this statement may be inaccurate and there is no public information to support it. My information is the ticket reduction was a Tom Finn initiative, I can't prove it but I believe the person who told me. There is certainly nothing I've seen in the public domain to support the view "Venky's have spent 70K of their own money" on this venture, equally there is nothing to disprove it. Without direct evidence one can't use this initiative to demonstrate Venky's understand the supporters.

With regard to the food voucher, I didn't meet anyone who was able to use these because of the enormous queues and understand prices were excessively high on the day. Personally I'd find it hard to spend £10 on the food / drink on offer at any ground I've visited and I doubt many fans redeemed the full value. At face value this cost £27,000, in reality it probably cost less than £10k. Again there is nothing to suggest this initiative was paid for by Venky's.

Rovers have long had the cheapest STs in the PL, and I'm happy to believe in the FL. This was a decision taken at Ewood several seasons ago. I understand the idea came from the marketing team and was enthusiastically taken up by JW and TF.. It was they who gave us cheap tickets not Venky's. Obviously the new owners are continuing the scheme, hopefully it is a sign they are beginning to understand the support but it is equally likely the Raos understand a hike in prices could have had a serious impact on sales?

I have no problem with any of these actions but they are not proof Venky's "care about the fans."

I do think you are splitting hairs here Paul. Clearly they didn't sign a cheque made out to the fans with love but the money came from a P&L they own. Or are you suggesting Tom Finn spent their money in a major PR gesture without telling anyone? I'm also amused by your inference that the long queues were a sign that the vouchers weren't being used; maybe not for the laggards at the back but surely someone was being served at the front?

I agree it does not prove they care about the fans, who does after all, but it is highly indicative they care what the fans think of them.

[Gav]

I presume you mean other posters by this because I have never claimed this to be the case for myself.

I certainly do mean other posters Paul and not you

I'm not hammering the owners on this. I simply said I didn't meet anyone on the day who managed to use the voucher. I also said I couldn't imagine myself spending £10 on the type of food on offer at a football ground. I would no more spend £10 at MacDonalds, I just don't eat this type of food as I don't like it. I'd have had a coffee and chocolate bar if there was one. That's my only point.

If you don't like whats on offer thats not the owners fault, if Wolves didn't have enough food or staff on the day thats not the owners fault, it was a great gesture and should be looked upon as such

[Paul]

I do think you are splitting hairs here Paul. Clearly they didn't sign a cheque made out to the fans with love but the money came from a P&L they own. Or are you suggesting Tom Finn spent their money in a major PR gesture without telling anyone? I'm also amused by your inference that the long queues were a sign that the vouchers weren't being used; maybe not for the laggards at the back but surely someone was being served at the front?

I agree it does not prove they care about the fans, who does after all, but it is highly indicative they care what the fans think of them.

Splitting hairs? Occassionaly I'm fortunate to be entertained by some of my suppliers, nothing lavish, equally I take customers to dinner etc. It is the companies footing the bill, imy9 has said "their own money." If I spend my "own" money, it's mine not the company's. There is a difference. Either I'm splitting hairs or imy9 needs to chose his words with more care. Ultimately the funds for these gestures will come from Rovers accounts, those accounts may be balanced through selling players, it has happened before. "Own money" is writing a cheque not balancing the books.

Obviously long queues means people were spending the vouchers, again what I said " I didn't meet anyone" - there is a difference. When I got in the ground 30 minutes before KO the queues where huge, I'm not bothered all I would have had was a coffee or bottle of water.

[Exiled in Toronto]

Splitting hairs? Occassionaly I'm fortunate to be entertained by some of my suppliers, nothing lavish, equally I take customers to dinner etc. It is the companies footing the bill, imy9 has said "their own money." If I spend my "own" money, it's mine not the company's. There is a difference. Either I'm splitting hairs or imy9 needs to chose his words with more care. Ultimately the funds for these gestures will come from Rovers accounts, those accounts may be balanced through selling players, it has happened before. "Own money" is writing a cheque not balancing the books.

Surely though when someone owns their company 100% that distinction is less clear, if not disappears completely apart from the tax deductible element? Yes they could balance the books but they could have sold the player anyway and kept the money for themselves.

If Venky's are to blame for everything that goes wrong then surely they must be credited when anything good happens? But I agree one cannot pass judgement on what they think of the fans, only they know that. They may well have begrudgingly agreed to it purely as a PR stunt but it has to be better than having Freddie Sheppard gloating about thick fans paying 30 quid for a 2 quid shirt.

[imy9]

There is a danger of being pedantic on this but you said "their own money" for me this directly implies the money is coming from Venky's or the Raos. It clearly is not, it is coming from Blackburn Rovers funds. I fully agree the club is owned by Venky's, the company, but this money is not coming directly from that company or the Raos, or at least there is nothing to suggest it is. Perhaps I'm being pedantic but I interpret "their own money" as something entirely different from Rovers funding the initiative. In the past when similar iniatives have occurred it was the club, not the Trust, which received the praise. Why not now?

In my opinion your splitting hairs on this Paul. The Raos own Blackburn Rovers FC 100%, any profit it makes, any losses it incurs will hit them no one else, as such when they give 70K, whether it shows up on Venkys London tab or Blackburn Rovers tab it is all the same thing.

Past ST initiatives have been funded by the club, i.e. the management JW/TF concluded it better to have increased support at low prices than higher revenue and low attendance. To balance the shortfall in income in the recent past Warnock, for example, was openly sold to balance the books. It was a management decision to lower ST revenue and risk selling a player to fund the shortfall.

Surely we need to wait and see here? The Raos have said we are no longer a selling club and we did turn down bids for Jones in January.

You imply with the following statement "with all due respect to Mr Finn and the other employees I have not seen them put money into their pockets and fund the initiative" that Venky's / Raos will be directly funding any shortfall in revenue. There is no evidence to support this. From past experience, Warnock, we know the previous management was prepared to sell players to help fund the wage bill and therefore, indirectly, low ST prices. There is no evidence, either way, to argue if Venky's / Raos will or will not do this. Nothing in the public domain supports the view Venky's are directly funding low cost STs, cheap Wolves tickets or free food.

Its their club- if we were relegated and the revenue stopped from SKY who would have pay the wages? Blackburn Rovers FC? No it would have been The Raos.

At no point have I made a negative statement; I have questioned the assertion Venky's are funding these actions. I've given reasoned arguement backed up with historical fact. Your view is a touch simplistic, it's their club therefore it's their money. This is not correct, ask anyone who runs a business. If I wanted to put a negative spin on this I would argue investing £70,000 in getting a sell out away crowd to Wolves to support the team is a pittance compared to the £30,40, 50m the club would lose through relegation. That is the cynical view. I'm not arguing that point of view but it is the negative one.

We had already sold out- the offer came after.

The manner of your responses to those who present an alternative view is often close to insulting and certainly attempts to put words in others mouths. It would be nice if you could treat other posters with the respect you presumably like to have extended to your own views.

If I have come across as insulting then I apologise, it was certainly not my intention but if I'm honest I dont think I have been rude or insulting.

In relation to ST prices all that has happened is the club's policy, initiated by previous management, has continued. I'm very pleased to see the right decision has been made. The owners could easily have dramatically increased prices, at no point have I suggested this would happen, and should be praised for sticking with established policy.

Agreed.

The other two points remain to be proven, please note I have not made any remarks on these as it is pure speculation.

[TimmyJimmy]

There seems to be a lot of mutual disrespect amongst us supporters. Maybe it's time we all stopped and drew breath and moved on.

The position of both groups have apparently been labelled as 1) obsequious Venky supporters - even apologists who will try to defend the indefensible 2) reactionary old guard supporters - even narcissistic egotists who get off on their 'in the know' self declared status.

Anyone with a shred of fairplay in them knows that both of these positions are completely untrue,

yet this internecine faction fighting continues.

If we just looked at the facts and acknowledged them for what they are then we can park all this stuff and move on and become supporters again rather than combatants.

The Venkys have not done nothing illegal, this is self evident, if they had then legal proceedings would be flying here there and everywhere.

From all their statements the Venkys want this ownership to be a success however that’s defined.

If giving the appearance of being somewhat naive and totally novice in the ways of football ownership and management they seem to be well intentioned.

My personal point of view is that I buy into these sentiments yet it's hard to get rid of the whiff of the disingenuous. You simply cannot say one thing (or imply or suggest or assure or ...) and do another. The least this does is to breed contempt and suspicion.

The old fashioned view of business ownership was simple, the equity owners were the ‘owners’ and the directors did what was expected of them under an agency model. Things have moved on and as a business graduate from a top university I would have expected Mrs D to pay more respect to this.

For a couple of decades now the term 'stakeholder' has covered the other important power players in any business eg the employees, the customers etc.. You have to involve these groups and address their needs besides those of the equity owners (exclusively). If you do not - well let's just say you are making a sub-optimal decision and you end up with this situation.

We the supporters - old and new - are stakeholders and we should not have been treated in the way we have been (characterise that as you will). This has been made all the more intolerable given our history of being a family club. You do not treat family in the way we have been treated.

That's how I feel about it and from reading this board for a long time now I think I'm not alone in that determination.

But what's done is done, we start from here not from somewhere else, so it's time to move on. The Venkys aren't the Devil but they have done some ridiculous things (IMO).

For the sake of sanity can we please draw a line under this, respect each others sometimes diametrically opposed views and cut all the fending and proving stuff.

Tom Finn and JW did great things for this club and more importantly for me they did it as true supporters, they’ll both be missed. It’s out of no disrespect to them that I’m asking we bury the hatchet and move on. Forgive me for lapsing into poetry but “...the moving finger writes and having writ moves on, nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line nor all thy tears wash out a word of it ...” That’s the way of it. We can’t change anything and what’s done is done, time to move on.

Can someone who is in touch with Nicko please email him and say we want to kiss and make up and that we miss his input on the transfer thread. Always nice to look forward rather than look back I think.

[Boz]

If this topic is more Venkys blah blah then I will pass.

However if it is to recognise and for us supporters to acknowledge the top efforts of Tom during his time at BRFC, then please let me add my two penneth.

A truly decent, first class and professional bloke who always placed the well being of our club before anything and anyone else. A handy chap to have in your four man golf team too!

[rovers_rob]

Fantastic post TimmyJimmy, I suspect this sums up what a lot of people feel as well. I am sick of reading constant personal bickering over the last few weeks.

There is no doubt that this season has been stressful and horrendous on and off the pitch but hopefully things will calm down, lessons will be learnt and it will come good.

A few 11 o clockers from Mr N would be nice as well to keep us going throughout the pre season !

[imy9]

Excellent post TimmyJimmy- I agree with the sentiment- also like the poem

[Shaddy]

When Tom Finn discovered that I was an Aussie all the way over at Ewood to watch Rovers for the first time, he arranged to show me the Premier League trophy and got me into the players lounge. A home game against Aston Villa circa 2005.

Great man. Will be missed at the club. Sincere best wishes to Tom Finn for the future.

[Steve Moss]

Imy9 stated above:

"In my opinion your splitting hairs on this Paul. The Raos own Blackburn Rovers FC 100%, any profit it makes, any losses it incurs will hit them no one else, as such when they give 70K, whether it shows up on Venkys London tab or Blackburn Rovers tab it is all the same thing."

. . .

"Its their club- if we were relegated and the revenue stopped from SKY who would have pay the wages? Blackburn Rovers FC? No it would have been The Raos."

Sorry for the formating. I'm not computer savvy and have problems quoting comments within another post.

Perhaps the laws are different in England as compared to the USA on the point, and likely are. So take this with a grain of salt and a dose of caution. But it is my understanding that the Rovers are held in a corporate entity separate from the Raos other assets. If the Rovers fail, whether driven into debt or otherwise, under Arizona law (a far cry from England, I know), the Raos' personal assets and the assets of their other corporate entities, are NOT responsible for the Rovers' debts. It could be that they voluntarily pay them, and it could be that they signed certain commitments to the Trust which would require them to pay them, but personal responsibility is far from guaranteed based on what we know.

Its one of several reasons one forms corporations and limited liability companies.

And having said that, it could be that the Raos' motivations and intentions are pure as gold and that they intend to advance the Rovers into Europe and beyond. I actually believe that to be very possible and even likely. What concerns me is the manner of execution of their plans. Personally, I have not seen any positive progress despite their spending money this last January. When they sacked Sam and JW left, in my opinion, they took two steps back and have only managed one step forward in response. It is early days, and they could turn things around, but it is not unreasonable to feel and voice concern.

[PAFELL]

The only mention of the date of June 2011 is made specifically in relation to "the current President, Vice Presidents and Honorary Vice Presidents of Blackburn Rovers".

Tom Finn is (was) the Managing Director, SA was the Football Manager and JW was the Chairman. So if you're wanting to build a challenge on the exact wording of the document you are trying to discredit, I think you need to have a rethink.

You may have a case based on the spirit of what is written elsewhere in the document, but directly linking the departure of TF to the quoted date of June 2011 is misleading.

I'm quite sure that it was entirely Tom's own decision to choose the timing of yesterdays news, and I also think that fans, colleagues and owners owe him a huge vote of thanks for the work he's done over the last 15 years, but particularly over the last 6 months.

And I know for a fact that as much as any other fan of the club, he wants to see BRFC going on to enjoy a prosperous future - and that means under the new owners and management.

Thanks Tris. I have mentioned a number of times I am a layman, not involved in business or law, which is why I posted my 'concerns / complaints' about the takeover offer document.

Ok going on the spirit of what was written, I presume this involves the name of the ground and Jack Walker stand and statue. After I think these things are mentioned also. Is there any legal commitment with regards to those things?

Fully agree that Tom Finn did a very good job at Rovers. I also know he would want the club to do well - no matter who the owners are.

[PAFELL]

There seems to be a lot of mutual disrespect amongst us supporters. Maybe it's time we all stopped and drew breath and moved on.

The position of both groups have apparently been labelled as 1) obsequious Venky supporters - even apologists who will try to defend the indefensible 2) reactionary old guard supporters - even narcissistic egotists who get off on their 'in the know' self declared status.

Anyone with a shred of fairplay in them knows that both of these positions are completely untrue,

yet this internecine faction fighting continues.

If we just looked at the facts and acknowledged them for what they are then we can park all this stuff and move on and become supporters again rather than combatants.

The Venkys have not done nothing illegal, this is self evident, if they had then legal proceedings would be flying here there and everywhere.

From all their statements the Venkys want this ownership to be a success however that’s defined.

If giving the appearance of being somewhat naive and totally novice in the ways of football ownership and management they seem to be well intentioned.

My personal point of view is that I buy into these sentiments yet it's hard to get rid of the whiff of the disingenuous. You simply cannot say one thing (or imply or suggest or assure or ...) and do another. The least this does is to breed contempt and suspicion.

The old fashioned view of business ownership was simple, the equity owners were the ‘owners’ and the directors did what was expected of them under an agency model. Things have moved on and as a business graduate from a top university I would have expected Mrs D to pay more respect to this.

For a couple of decades now the term 'stakeholder' has covered the other important power players in any business eg the employees, the customers etc.. You have to involve these groups and address their needs besides those of the equity owners (exclusively). If you do not - well let's just say you are making a sub-optimal decision and you end up with this situation.

We the supporters - old and new - are stakeholders and we should not have been treated in the way we have been (characterise that as you will). This has been made all the more intolerable given our history of being a family club. You do not treat family in the way we have been treated.

That's how I feel about it and from reading this board for a long time now I think I'm not alone in that determination.

But what's done is done, we start from here not from somewhere else, so it's time to move on. The Venkys aren't the Devil but they have done some ridiculous things (IMO).

For the sake of sanity can we please draw a line under this, respect each others sometimes diametrically opposed views and cut all the fending and proving stuff.

Tom Finn and JW did great things for this club and more importantly for me they did it as true supporters, they’ll both be missed. It’s out of no disrespect to them that I’m asking we bury the hatchet and move on. Forgive me for lapsing into poetry but “...the moving finger writes and having writ moves on, nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line nor all thy tears wash out a word of it ...” That’s the way of it. We can’t change anything and what’s done is done, time to move on.

Can someone who is in touch with Nicko please email him and say we want to kiss and make up and that we miss his input on the transfer thread. Always nice to look forward rather than look back I think.

I want whoever owns Rovers to be a success. Because that makes the club a success also.

Yet when people (myself included)have not gone along with some 'concerns' raised by yourself and others - we have been shot down, told we are blind etc. But after all that has been said and done, I do agree about moving on from here.

Also about Nicko.

[Iceman]

When you're a mod, I'll be sorry

[Paul]

Perhaps the laws are different in England as compared to the USA on the point, and likely are. So take this with a grain of salt and a dose of caution. But it is my understanding that the Rovers are held in a corporate entity separate from the Raos other assets. If the Rovers fail, whether driven into debt or otherwise, under Arizona law (a far cry from England, I know), the Raos' personal assets and the assets of their other corporate entities, are NOT responsible for the Rovers' debts. It could be that they voluntarily pay them, and it could be that they signed certain commitments to the Trust which would require them to pay them, put personal responsibility is far from guaranteed based on what we know.

Its one of several reasons one forms corporations and limited liability companies.

And having said that, it could be that the Raos' motivations and intentions are pure as gold and that they intend to advance the Rovers into Europe and beyond. I actually believe that to be very possible and even likely. What concerns me is the manner of execution of their plans. Personally, I have not seen any positive progress despite their spending money this last January. When they sacked Sam and JW left, in my opinion, they took two steps back and have only managed one step forward in response. It is early days, and they could turn things around, but it is not unreasonable to feel and voice concern.

I'm not a corporate lawyer or even an accountant but yes this is the broad position in the UK. We have limited companies etc and one of the functions of this status is to limit liability. Others will be able to give far better detail than I. Basically unless the Raos or Venky's have given personal or company guarantees should Rovers fail the debts are a problem for those who are owed money not the owners. If they have given personal guarantees, not uncommon for small UK business but unlikely for a football club, then they become responsible. For example it is not uncommon for banks to take a small businessman's house as a guarantee on his business borrowings.

Should Rovers fail the vehicle used by Venky's / Raos to make the purchase will clearly lose the investment. I would imagine highly paid accountants would crawl all over this to minimise that loss if the worst happened. While I fully understand the sentiment of those who state the Raos are funding things with "their own money" because they own the company(ies) it isn't really true. Owning a company doesn't make it's money your own, in my view.

On the other hand I have heard it suggested the whole thing is costing an awful lot more money than was originally budgeted for and this may have a direct impact on the Raos personal finances. Who knows? It's unlikely any of us ever will.

[tashor]

Great post TimmyJimmy.

I hope everyone who visits this site reads it.

"Our owners are the true phoenixes; when the old one is burnt out, new ones rise from its ashes." (Apologies to Goethe)

Let us pray that they don't metamorphosize into a different avian form.........

[Fife Rover]

Fantastic post TimmyJimmy, I suspect this sums up what a lot of people feel as well. I am sick of reading constant personal bickering over the last few weeks.

There is no doubt that this season has been stressful and horrendous on and off the pitch but hopefully things will calm down, lessons will be learnt and it will come good.

A few 11 o clockers from Mr N would be nice as well to keep us going throughout the pre season !

Fully agree with all of that + Timmy Jimmy's excellent post as well. Between the two of you that has saved me a lot of typing that I was thinking of doing.

[thenodrog]

This thread is pathetic! Everyone who wants to slate the Venkys can do it somewhere else. I fancy a love in

I use to enjoy reading this messageboard, but with all the crap written about Venkys, it has become a chore.

Optimism? I think some people have never known the meaning of this.

If Venkys read this messageboard they probably would leave us in the s***, just for the amount of rubbish writen on here!

I too have been guilty of criticising the Venkey mob until I discovered thay have sweet FA to do with the direction the club is moving in and the overall running of the club. It seems they have been taken in like the rest of us.

[yeti-dog]

I too have been guilty of criticising the Venkey mob until I discovered thay have sweet FA to do with the direction the club is moving in and the overall running of the club. It seems they have been taken in like the rest of us.

trust you to sh*t on the olive branch offered by more reasonable posters.

You just can't help yourself can you...

[Fife Rover]

trust you to sh*t on the olive branch offered by more reasonable posters.

You just can't help yourself can you...

Don't worry Yeti; he's getting treatment for it................it's just taking a long time working.

[JAL]

I too have been guilty of criticising the Venkey mob until I discovered thay have sweet FA to do with the direction the club is moving in and the overall running of the club. It seems they have been taken in like the rest of us.

Care to elaborate further Theno about who is exactly moving or running the club if it isnt the Raos, as I'd thought we'd moved on from this Kent twato fella.

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

Inspiring stuff TimmyJimmy, you sound more like an arts than a business graduate. Could it be suggested however that the pro/anti-Venkys rift is the main driving force behind activity on this board and it'd be a more vacant place without it? I think this quote best sums up my opinion on Venkys:

"A diamond with a flaw is worth more than a pebble without imperfections." - George W. Bush or Chinese Proverb

[braddock]

Apologies for off topic post but doesn't Nicko still write articles? Other than dripping us little bits of info that never tended to go anywhere (which interested me I have to say and may have been more to do with the times and finances), all he did that was of real worth was justify his presence and post his article on here. Surely if we read his articles we'd be in pretty much the same situation.

And yeah, so long Finn. Met you once, didn't like you, but I forgive you for the work you did.

[thenodrog]

And yeah, so long Finn. Met you once, didn't like you, but I forgive you for the work you did.

Nice of you not to wish serious ill health on him too as well as you did on Sam Allardyce. Can't have been easy for you. I'm sure they'd both speak very highly of the likes of you though.