Venky's own Blackburn http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Rovers-c40385 and the fans will have to learn – English Premier League debate
What does a poultry farm company from http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/India-c750 and an English football club have in common? It owns the football club!
On November 19, 2010, Venkateshwara Hatcheries Group bought Blackburn Rovers for an amount of £23 million under the name Venky’s London Limited. On top of that they also cleared £20 million in debts along with investing £10 million in short-term capital.
Blackburn was amongst the founding members of the English Premier League. In fact, they were the cup winners in the 1994/95 season. That was largely due to the then investor Walker. Walker saw the fortunes at Rovers plummet down and that compelled him to
sell it off to the Venky’s.
The takeover surely made the fans optimistic. They felt good times were here for the small textile town of Blackburn.
‘We want to keep the fans happy and make the club better,’ Venkatesh Rao said.
‘As and when required, we will invest, in a responsible way, but let me be clear: money will not be a problem. I am not going to promise specific figures but if we need to spend £5m on something, we’ll spend it. If we need £10m, £15m, £20m, we’ll do it.
We won’t compromise on quality. We are prepared to spend a lot over time,’ he insisted.
That was then. The conclusion of the 2010/11 season has seen handling of the club more for business reasons than for the http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Love-c22466 of the game. The once happy fans are not exactly sure how to react just yet. To others, this sounds more like a PR gimmick by the
Venky’s group which is headed by Anuradha Desa.
It is believed that the takeover is primarily to target the Asian community around the Blackburn area. Why? Maybe they were not selling enough chicken?
The Asian youth barely has any backing for the club. They have their favourites in http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Chelsea-c38786 etc; they will rather follow the big ones. But if Venky’s can actually get some backing by then for Blackburn, then that will be some
doing. It is perhaps not the smartest of investment moves. Perhaps, it is not even the intention. Maybe, it is another deal and the group actually would want a return on investment. They have a long way to go though. They need to understand that football in
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/England-c749 is bigger than chicken in India.
Their handling of http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Phil-Jones-c29903 has earned them much criticism. Yet again!
Should the fans give them more time as they go through the learning curve? Why not?
Come what may, Venky’s are the owners now. In all earnest hopes, fans would want it to work out as Venky’s can surely inject funds as and when they want. After all, they have ‘only’ ninety plus cars that they own. Let’s not discuss the other assets at all.
Blackburn is fighting with Juventus to sign on http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Roma-c31603 for a £10 million deal. They have already sold £16.5 million worth Phil Jones to the Reds. On paper that sounds like a smart business deal. How well it translates on the playing field
is yet to be seen.
Venky’s have been called naive on the handling of Jones buy-out. That seems to have been the case all along since they took over. At least it shows to the fans that Venky’s are all fine with transactions of the players. They will learn with time. The fans
will hope. The fans will learn too.
Disclaimer: Views expressed here are the writer’s own and in no way represent bettor.com’s official editorial policy
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