When is a final hearing not a final hearing I hear you ask?

A court adjournment is the football equivalent of hitting the first man from a set piece.

A frustrating outcome when hopes had been raised of a successful conclusion.

And I’ve sat through too many of both for my liking.

Who would have known that as well as requiring an economics degree to follow football in the 21st Century, you also need one in law and geopolitical issues too.

At this stage of a season, fans should be scrolling social media for transfer rumours, put the finishing touches to away trips, not logging into a web link to watch item 36 in Court 8 of Delhi High Court.

But here we are…

My overriding feeling is that Rovers are seemingly caught in the middle of a power struggle between the Indian Government and a crackdown on money leaving the country through the Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas Investment) Rules introduced.

That is where the Rao family and their fortune comes in.

And it’s a battle that seems no nearer to a conclusion.

Everything appears to stem back to the purchase of a property more than a decade ago, and the unpaid tax and interest on it.

The property was described in some quarters as an ‘investment’ that would offer a north west base for the owners when visiting the area, largely to attend matches. It’s safe to say it’s been neither an investment, nor a base.

However, rather than Rovers’ owners being in the dock over any alleged misdemeanours, this week’s hearing was indeed them bringing a case to the Delhi High Court.

This centred around the removal of the requirement for an order to be made, and guarantee provided, for any funds to be transferred to an overseas sister company, in this case the football club.

Venkateshwara Hatcheries Pvt Limited is the Rao family business and overall parent company, Venky’s London Limited is the company which owners 99.99 per cent of the football club, and then there is Venky’s Overseas Limited, the one said to have purchased the property just after the Rao’s takeover at Ewood Park.

That company was set up under the purposes of agriculture and mining, not overseas property buying, and it is that lack of declaration which appears to be where the issue has stemmed from.

Just to add into the mix, we also have Venkateshwara London Limited, set up in 2021, two weeks before the purchase of Rovers’ Brockhall training ground.

Still following?

Despite all of the above, everything links back to the parent company, the VH Group.

But while it is they who find themselves at the forefront of these proceedings, it appears, particularly as Rovers supporters, it is the football club feeling the effects the most. At least for now.

Chief executive Steve Waggott said ahead of the season ‘(the owners) have told and informed me that it does not have any operational aspects of the club’, though did go on to say ‘(the owners) have to put a guarantee against any funding they give the club’.

At the very least, you would have to say that has the potential to have an impact on the operational aspects of the club.

It’s easy to speculate, but harder to know with any definitive proof, what the outlook would be had there been a conclusion, rather than an adjournment.

Were the application to have been successful, and the need for a guarantee removed, it would have made the transfer of funds easier, but what level those funds would be would again be at the discretion of the owners.

And were it not successful, would things just carry on as they are, or would it be straw which broke the camel’s back, and that commitment we so often hear about called into question?

We hear how family is so important to the owners, and Rovers is a part of that.

This feels a pride thing for them as much as anything else, and the commitment in which they feel.

While the resolution which affects Rovers is seemingly the court order concerning the transfer of funds, this doesn’t appear to be the end of the road for the owners’ either in their ongoing battle with the Indian Government.

I am yet to see any update, nor resolution, to the tax issue and seizure of assets when the issues initially came to light.

The owners, like supporters, are too facing a waiting game, theirs an expensive one. In the meantime, Rovers have a little over a week to sign, in my view, a minimum of five players. And they may be having a power struggle of their own when it comes to recruitment, and a question over the involvement of the head coach, in this case John Eustace.

Of the five players signed so far, it’s hard not to see it as 3–2 in his favour, with the recruitment team appearing to cast their net wider than that of Eustace who looks keen to push for Championship experience.

Like everything in football, money may well win the day.