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Ben-2000

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Madon Uefa Europa League

Madon

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It was a strange mixture of emotions that filled Blakeys bar at King Georges Hall, Blackburn on Thursday night. There was anger, righteous indignation at the deepening travesty at Blackburn Rovers, but there was also weariness, desperation, a palpable sense of helplessness among supporters unsure which way to turn.

They have stood and watched, powerless, as their club have been ridden roughshod towards oblivion by a group called Venkys an Indian poultry firm whose foray into football-club ownership has been one long story of wretched mismanagement. Stories about the Rao familys ignorance of football matters of the release clause in Phil Joness contract, of the fact you could be relegated from the Premier League, of the financial regulations that they would soon have to abide by in the Football League have been detailed previously in this column, but nothing, not even the excruciating pronouncements of Shebby Singh during his mercifully brief spell as the clubs global adviser, reflect this tale of woe as starkly as the bare facts and figures.

Football clubs fortunes in the 21st century are being decided by a spin-the-bottle type ownership lottery

In November 2010, when Venkys took control, Blackburn were a stable, well-run, albeit indebted Premier League club (average league attendance 25,427, net debt £21 million, pre-tax loss of £1.9 million for the previous financial year). Six managerial appointments later, starting with the mind-boggling decision to replace Sam Allardyce with Steve Kean, they are bottom of the Sky Bet Championship (one point from five games) with a skeleton squad playing to an early-season average league attendance of 11,153. Their most recent financial accounts showed a pre-tax loss of £17.2 million and this while they were still receiving parachute payments from the Premier League and a net debt of £104.2 million. The Burnley connections of Owen Coyle, the latest managerial appointment, are the least of the supporters worries.

It is an appalling mess, a serious threat to the future of a proud, historic club who were one of the Football Leagues founder members in 1888, won the Premier League title under Jack Walkers beneficent ownership in 1995 and were, for a time in the last decade, an example to all those provincial clubs who seek to balance realism with ambition in the bid to stay afloat in the top flight.

Thursdays meeting was called by two fan groups the Rovers Trust and the BRFC Action Group in the hope of finding a way forward. The turnout was impressive, about 300 pitching up at 48 hours notice, but there was, among some, a feeling that nothing they do will force the change of ownership that the club so obviously need. Venkys seems to have gained nothing but grief and adverse publicity from an investment that has cost it £100 million as it has tried to keep the club afloat, but it maintains that it will not sell and is totally and absolutely committed to supporting the club [and] its advancement in all aspects.

That message meets with derision back in Blackburn. Anger, too. Theyve sold every asset player-wise, theyve replaced them with free transfers, theyre losing £20 million every year and its only going one way, Glen Mullan, the Rovers Trust secretary, said after Thursdays meeting. Ive been over there to Pune [the Rao familys base in India] and looked these people in the eye. Five-and-a-half years later theyre still here and theyre just not listening. And what youve seen in this room tonight is that people dont know what to do any more. Weve tried protests, weve tried going to the FA, weve tried the Football League, the media dont really pick it up any more. You get relegated from the Premier League and youre not big news any more, so were on our own.

They are not suffering in total isolation, though. Other clubs are being badly run not just us, another Blackburn fan, Neal, told the meeting. We need to stand together with other clubs. I have one solution for fans of clubs like Blackpool, Leeds United, Charlton Athletic and ourselves and thats to push the FA for fan representation at board level. It needs to happen to make sure what is happening to us and what has happened at Blackpool, Leeds, Charlton doesnt happen elsewhere. We need to stop owners like this doing what theyre doing. There are clubs up and down the country who have been harmed by people like this. It has got to stop. We have got to push the authorities to protect football clubs.

Hear, hear. This column has long argued for something to be done at government level to ensure that football clubs, increasingly regarded as commercial franchises, are recognised as community assets, among the most vital of local institutions. They must be protected from the type of corporate vandalism that led to, for example, Portsmouth going from FA Cup glory to the fourth tier in five turbulent years. The Owners and Directors Test is a little more rigorous these days, but, for example, Massimo Cellino, who has been banned from boardroom involvement at Leeds on two occasions, was still able to buy the club and continues to run it on the succession of bizarre whims that have added substantially to the chaos and dysfunction brought by previous regimes.

It should not be like this, where football clubs fortunes in the 21st century are being decided by a spin-the-bottle type ownership lottery. Land on an ambitious benefactor, like Chelsea and Manchester City did, and you are well placed for as far as the eye can see. You are more likely, though, to end up with the type of owner that brings disorder, usually through a drastic failure to comprehend what football is and how it works.

That is the situation, though, and the danger is that, with no obvious saviour or solution on the horizon, Blackburns supporters are simply going to have to live with the consequences of their owners many mistakes. Those consequences include apathy as well as anger. In a town such as Blackburn (population 105,000, facing the many challenges of post-industrial decline), it took significant on-pitch success, and the attendant feelgood factor, to sustain average attendances above 20,000 for most of the 1990s and the 2000s. Once a malaise eats away at the soul of a club, though, attendances tend to plummet, as they have done at Ewood Park.

Some would encourage the fans to stage a mass boycott until the club are back in suitable hands, but the effect would be smaller than you might imagine, since Blackburns annual matchday revenue has already dwindled to about £3 million. Beyond that, a boycott is always easier said than done. Mullan says that, despite his deep anger towards Venkys, he loves and lives for the club and that nothing in the world would stop me going not even this. That message is reinforced by another supporter, Bob, who is in his late 60s. I dont know where were going to go, Bob says, but I will still go to the Rovers until I bloody die.

One decision to come out of Thursdays meeting was for a loud and visible protest when the Sky Sports television cameras come to town for the home match against Wolverhampton Wanderers on October 29. A mass walkout was proposed by some, but even then there was the feeling that this might undermine the team while making no impact whatsoever on the owner more than 6,000 miles away in Pune. We need to take the fight to the family, Mullan says.

And that is what they are going to do. For five years they have waited for Venkys to engage with them and so in January a delegation of Blackburn supporters will travel to Pune to try to hold face-to-face discussions with the Rao family to be professional about it, to try to meet them on their own turf, Wayne Wild, chairman of the Rovers Trust says. And if they dont turn up, then the campaign will continue in India itself.

The timing is based on a desire to attract media coverage in India around Englands one-day international cricket match in Pune on January 15 and, if necessary, to embarrass the Rao family and the Venkys brand. It is a desperate move, but the situation is so dire as to leave them resorting to desperate measures. It really should never have come to this, though. As one of those supporters said on Thursday night, more has to be done to protect clubs from being shunted on to the slippery slope on which Blackburn and others sadly find themselves.

Credit Oliver Kay http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/venkys-and-other-corporate-vandals-must-be-stopped-from-owning-clubs-9ktw7pvhf

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Iceman World Cup

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It was a strange mixture of emotions that filled Blakeys bar at King Georges Hall, Blackburn on Thursday night. There was anger, righteous indignation at the deepening travesty at Blackburn Rovers, but there was also weariness, desperation, a palpable sense of helplessness among supporters unsure which way to turn.

They have stood and watched, powerless, as their club have been ridden roughshod towards oblivion by a group called Venkys an Indian poultry firm whose foray into football-club ownership has been one long story of wretched mismanagement. Stories about the Rao familys ignorance of football matters of the release clause in Phil Joness contract, of the fact you could be relegated from the Premier League, of the financial regulations that they would soon have to abide by in the Football League have been detailed previously in this column, but nothing, not even the excruciating pronouncements of Shebby Singh during his mercifully brief spell as the clubs global adviser, reflect this tale of woe as starkly as the bare facts and figures.

Football clubs fortunes in the 21st century are being decided by a spin-the-bottle type ownership lottery

In November 2010, when Venkys took control, Blackburn were a stable, well-run, albeit indebted Premier League club (average league attendance 25,427, net debt £21 million, pre-tax loss of £1.9 million for the previous financial year). Six managerial appointments later, starting with the mind-boggling decision to replace Sam Allardyce with Steve Kean, they are bottom of the Sky Bet Championship (one point from five games) with a skeleton squad playing to an early-season average league attendance of 11,153. Their most recent financial accounts showed a pre-tax loss of £17.2 million and this while they were still receiving parachute payments from the Premier League and a net debt of £104.2 million. The Burnley connections of Owen Coyle, the latest managerial appointment, are the least of the supporters worries.

It is an appalling mess, a serious threat to the future of a proud, historic club who were one of the Football Leagues founder members in 1888, won the Premier League title under Jack Walkers beneficent ownership in 1995 and were, for a time in the last decade, an example to all those provincial clubs who seek to balance realism with ambition in the bid to stay afloat in the top flight.

Thursdays meeting was called by two fan groups the Rovers Trust and the BRFC Action Group in the hope of finding a way forward. The turnout was impressive, about 300 pitching up at 48 hours notice, but there was, among some, a feeling that nothing they do will force the change of ownership that the club so obviously need. Venkys seems to have gained nothing but grief and adverse publicity from an investment that has cost it £100 million as it has tried to keep the club afloat, but it maintains that it will not sell and is totally and absolutely committed to supporting the club [and] its advancement in all aspects.

That message meets with derision back in Blackburn. Anger, too. Theyve sold every asset player-wise, theyve replaced them with free transfers, theyre losing £20 million every year and its only going one way, Glen Mullan, the Rovers Trust secretary, said after Thursdays meeting. Ive been over there to Pune [the Rao familys base in India] and looked these people in the eye. Five-and-a-half years later theyre still here and theyre just not listening. And what youve seen in this room tonight is that people dont know what to do any more. Weve tried protests, weve tried going to the FA, weve tried the Football League, the media dont really pick it up any more. You get relegated from the Premier League and youre not big news any more, so were on our own.

They are not suffering in total isolation, though. Other clubs are being badly run not just us, another Blackburn fan, Neal, told the meeting. We need to stand together with other clubs. I have one solution for fans of clubs like Blackpool, Leeds United, Charlton Athletic and ourselves and thats to push the FA for fan representation at board level. It needs to happen to make sure what is happening to us and what has happened at Blackpool, Leeds, Charlton doesnt happen elsewhere. We need to stop owners like this doing what theyre doing. There are clubs up and down the country who have been harmed by people like this. It has got to stop. We have got to push the authorities to protect football clubs.

Hear, hear. This column has long argued for something to be done at government level to ensure that football clubs, increasingly regarded as commercial franchises, are recognised as community assets, among the most vital of local institutions. They must be protected from the type of corporate vandalism that led to, for example, Portsmouth going from FA Cup glory to the fourth tier in five turbulent years. The Owners and Directors Test is a little more rigorous these days, but, for example, Massimo Cellino, who has been banned from boardroom involvement at Leeds on two occasions, was still able to buy the club and continues to run it on the succession of bizarre whims that have added substantially to the chaos and dysfunction brought by previous regimes.

It should not be like this, where football clubs fortunes in the 21st century are being decided by a spin-the-bottle type ownership lottery. Land on an ambitious benefactor, like Chelsea and Manchester City did, and you are well placed for as far as the eye can see. You are more likely, though, to end up with the type of owner that brings disorder, usually through a drastic failure to comprehend what football is and how it works.

That is the situation, though, and the danger is that, with no obvious saviour or solution on the horizon, Blackburns supporters are simply going to have to live with the consequences of their owners many mistakes. Those consequences include apathy as well as anger. In a town such as Blackburn (population 105,000, facing the many challenges of post-industrial decline), it took significant on-pitch success, and the attendant feelgood factor, to sustain average attendances above 20,000 for most of the 1990s and the 2000s. Once a malaise eats away at the soul of a club, though, attendances tend to plummet, as they have done at Ewood Park.

Some would encourage the fans to stage a mass boycott until the club are back in suitable hands, but the effect would be smaller than you might imagine, since Blackburns annual matchday revenue has already dwindled to about £3 million. Beyond that, a boycott is always easier said than done. Mullan says that, despite his deep anger towards Venkys, he loves and lives for the club and that nothing in the world would stop me going not even this. That message is reinforced by another supporter, Bob, who is in his late 60s. I dont know where were going to go, Bob says, but I will still go to the Rovers until I bloody die.

One decision to come out of Thursdays meeting was for a loud and visible protest when the Sky Sports television cameras come to town for the home match against Wolverhampton Wanderers on October 29. A mass walkout was proposed by some, but even then there was the feeling that this might undermine the team while making no impact whatsoever on the owner more than 6,000 miles away in Pune. We need to take the fight to the family, Mullan says.

And that is what they are going to do. For five years they have waited for Venkys to engage with them and so in January a delegation of Blackburn supporters will travel to Pune to try to hold face-to-face discussions with the Rao family to be professional about it, to try to meet them on their own turf, Wayne Wild, chairman of the Rovers Trust says. And if they dont turn up, then the campaign will continue in India itself.

The timing is based on a desire to attract media coverage in India around Englands one-day international cricket match in Pune on January 15 and, if necessary, to embarrass the Rao family and the Venkys brand. It is a desperate move, but the situation is so dire as to leave them resorting to desperate measures. It really should never have come to this, though. As one of those supporters said on Thursday night, more has to be done to protect clubs from being shunted on to the slippery slope on which Blackburn and others sadly find themselves.

Credit Oliver Kay http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/venkys-and-other-corporate-vandals-must-be-stopped-from-owning-clubs-9ktw7pvhf

Cheers Matt
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K-Hod World Cup

K-Hod

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Great stuff by Oliver Kay. Flip that with Cryer who was arguing on Twitter last night that our ownership situation could be worse. Grates on me big time that bloke.

The guy is just an embittered fool with a chip on his shoulder where Rovers are concerned. It's best just to ignore him. He's not worthy of our time.
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tomphil World Cup

tomphil

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Great stuff by Oliver Kay. Flip that with Cryer who was arguing on Twitter last night that our ownership situation could be worse. Grates on me big time that bloke.

Just block him mate It'll make things easier he's a WUM who throws a grenade out, turns it into a row then disappears. Has a weird obsession with Rovers fans for some reason maybe his pals are dingles or something.

Unfollowed him then got tired of seeing his crap retweeted so hit the block button, job done. Like one or two others he criticises Venkys etc but always seems to be looking for an angle to slag the fans who kick off.

One wonders why..

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blueboy3333 World Cup

blueboy3333

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Just found this (wee) gem of an article from back in the day. Jerome defo doesn't run the club and Steve is just a great thinker. Nothing to see here, move along:-

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/8835527.Mrs_Desai__Why_John_Williams_left_Blackburn_Rovers/

And another, on Fergies comments on Big Sam. All been posted before but it's interesting that the Premier League were getting a bit twitchy about SEM's involvement at the time (3rd party ownership indeed).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/8212027/Sir-Alex-Ferguson-warns-rise-of-the-agents-represents-a-serious-threat-to-footballs-future.html

As someone said at the meeting (Neal?) the FA need to be targeted. This needs to be relentless and to show them up for the gutless cowards they are. I'm sure a social media (twitter) campaign based around the FA not being 'fit and proper' would get huge support from the other clubs that have been dumped on (Leeds, Charlton, B'Pool etc). Lets not forget their links with Kentaro in all this.

The full role of agents in the demise of our club needs to be known not only by our fans, but also the wider football-following public. 3rd party ownership of both club and players needs to be highlighted again and again. Nobody needs to get sued, just keep referring to the many articles that already exist (in the mainstream and social media). Get leaflets printed. Release statements that refer to these articles.

This obviously needs a committee or group of fans specifically tasked with getting the info out there and then organising the protests. The time for belly-aching and self-pity is over. It needs to be done properly and not on an ad hoc basis. Context is everything. A protest (in whatever form) launched on the back of people knowing EXACTLY what has gone on our club will carry a lot more meaning and won't be dismissed as the grumblings of a few disenchanted fans whose team isn't as good as it once was...which is what Cryer is trying to do.

Constant peaceful, imaginative protest is the way forward. Something different at every game that keeps things fresh, directed at the owners, agents and the FA.

I told a PNE fan the other day at work what has gone on at our club. He just thought we had bad owners. He was amazed. 'How is that legal?' was one of many comments. Pretty much sums it up. What has happened at Rovers is unique for all the reasons we know about.

We need to target those that make the rules.

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G Somerset Rover World Cup

G Somerset Rover

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Just block him mate It'll make things easier he's a WUM who throws a grenade out, turns it into a row then disappears. Has a weird obsession with Rovers fans for some reason maybe his pals are dingles or something.

Unfollowed him then got tired of seeing his crap retweeted so hit the block button, job done. Like on or two others he criticises Venkys etc but always seems to be looking for an angle to slag the fans who kick off.

One wonders why..

Will likely do just that. As you say, it really is a weird obsession. He feeds off Rovers' struggles. Strange man.
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DE. World Cup

DE.

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Will likely do just that. As you say, it really is a weird obsession. He feeds off Rovers' struggles. Strange man.

When Coyle was appointed Cryer called it a "good appointment" and when somebody disagreed responded "at least you guys have somebody else to hound out".

No further evidence needed. The guy is not a friend of ours, I'd consider him an enemy, but one with little influence who should definitely be ignored.

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yoda

yoda

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How to write an article Cryer, you sad individual

OLIVER KAY

september 3 2016, 12:01am, the times

Venky’s and other corporate vandals must be stopped from owning clubs

oliver kay, chief football correspondent

It was a strange mixture of emotions that filled Blakeys bar at King George’s Hall, Blackburn on Thursday night. There was anger, righteous indignation at the deepening travesty at Blackburn Rovers, but there was also weariness, desperation, a palpable sense of helplessness among supporters unsure which way to turn.

They have stood and watched, powerless, as their club have been ridden roughshod towards oblivion by a group called Venky’s — an Indian poultry firm whose foray into football-club ownership has been one long story of wretched mismanagement. Stories about the Rao family’s ignorance of football matters — of the release clause in Phil Jones’s contract, of the fact you could be relegated from the Premier League, of the financial regulations that they would soon have to abide by in the Football League — have been detailed previously in this column, but nothing, not even the excruciating pronouncements of Shebby Singh during his mercifully brief spell as the club’s “global adviser”, reflect this tale of woe as starkly as the bare facts and figures. In November 2010, when Venky’s took control, Blackburn were a stable, well-run, albeit indebted Premier League club (average league attendance 25,427, net debt £21 million, pre-tax loss of £1.9 million for the previous financial year). Six managerial appointments later, starting with the mind-boggling decision to replace Sam Allardyce with Steve Kean, they are bottom of the Sky Bet Championship (one point from five games) with a skeleton squad playing to an early-season average league attendance of 11,153. Their most recent financial accounts showed a pre-tax loss of £17.2 million — and this while they were still receiving parachute payments from the Premier League — and a net debt of £104.2 million. The Burnley connections of Owen Coyle, the latest managerial appointment, are the least of the supporters’ worries.

It is an appalling mess, a serious threat to the future of a proud, historic club who were one of the Football League’s founder members in 1888, won the Premier League title under Jack Walker’s beneficent ownership in 1995 and were, for a time in the last decade, an example to all those provincial clubs who seek to balance realism with ambition in the bid to stay afloat in the top flight.

Thursday’s meeting was called by two fan groups — the Rovers Trust and the BRFC Action Group — in the hope of finding a way forward. The turnout was impressive, about 300 pitching up at 48 hours’ notice, but there was, among some, a feeling that nothing they do will force the change of ownership that the club so obviously need. Venky’s seems to have gained nothing but grief and adverse publicity from an investment that has cost it £100 million as it has tried to keep the club afloat, but it maintains that it will not sell and is “totally and absolutely committed to supporting the club [and] its advancement in all aspects”.

It should not be like this, where football clubs’ fortunes in the 21st century are being decided by a spin-the-bottle type ownership lottery. Land on an ambitious benefactor, like Chelsea and Manchester City did, and you are well placed for as far as the eye can see. You are more likely, though, to end up with the type of owner that brings disorder, usually through a drastic failure to comprehend what football is and how it works.

That is the situation, though, and the danger is that, with no obvious saviour or solution on the horizon, Blackburn’s supporters are simply going to have to live with the consequences of their owner’s many mistakes. Those consequences include apathy as well as anger. In a town such as Blackburn (population 105,000, facing the many challenges of post-industrial decline), it took significant on-pitch success, and the attendant feelgood factor, to sustain average attendances above 20,000 for most of the 1990s and the 2000s. Once a malaise eats away at the soul of a club, though, attendances tend to plummet, as they have done at Ewood Park.

Some would encourage the fans to stage a mass boycott until the club are back in suitable hands, but the effect would be smaller than you might imagine, since Blackburn’s annual matchday revenue has already dwindled to about £3 million. Beyond that, a boycott is always easier said than done. Mullan says that, despite his deep anger towards Venky’s, he loves and lives for the club and that “nothing in the world would stop me going — not even this”. That message is reinforced by another supporter, Bob, who is in his late 60s. “I don’t know where we’re going to go,” Bob says, “but I will still go to the Rovers until I bloody die.”

One decision to come out of Thursday’s meeting was for a loud and visible protest when the Sky Sports television cameras come to town for the home match against Wolverhampton Wanderers on October 29. A mass walkout was proposed by some, but even then there was the feeling that this might undermine the team while making no impact whatsoever on the owner more than 6,000 miles away in Pune. “We need to take the fight to the family,” Mullan says.

And that is what they are going to do. For five years they have waited for Venky’s to engage with them and so in January a delegation of Blackburn supporters will travel to Pune to try to hold face-to-face discussions with the Rao family — “to be professional about it, to try to meet them on their own turf,” Wayne Wild, chairman of the Rovers Trust says. “And if they don’t turn up, then the campaign will continue in India itself.”

The timing is based on a desire to attract media coverage in India around England’s one-day international cricket match in Pune on January 15 — and, if necessary, to embarrass the Rao family and the Venky’s brand. It is a desperate move, but the situation is so dire as to leave them resorting to desperate measures. It really should never have come to this, though. As one of those supporters said on Thursday night, more has to be done to protect clubs from being shunted on to the slippery slope on which Blackburn and others sadly find themselves.

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G Somerset Rover World Cup

G Somerset Rover

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So Mark Halsey has named the incident he was told to lie about 'not seeing':

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/09/04/mark-halsey-reveals-incident-he-claims-he-was-told-to-lie-about/

How did I know it would involve Rovers? N'Zonzi got a 3 match ban for that. This will just be the tip of the iceberg.

Mods - feel free to move this/start a new thread if you see fit, it didn't have a natural home.

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