Get those fingers crossed!!

by **StLedge** Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:28 pm

Blackburn Rovers supporters urging club's owners to sell and end 'disastrous' three-year reign at Ewood Park.

Blackburn Rovers’ controversial owners, Venky’s, have been offered the opportunity to make a ‘managed exit’ from Ewood Park by a group of wealthy supporters who admit to being “desperate” to end the Indian family’s “disastrous” three-year stewardship of the club.

Lifelong Blackburn Rovers supporters Ian Battersby and Ian Currie have contacted Venky’s to inform the Pune-based poultry processors that they have secured ‘significant investors’ to launch a takeover bid through connections to their company, Seneca Partners, which offers “independent Investment and Alternative Asset Management business for private individuals, entrepreneurs, companies, funds and charities”.

Although Battersby and Currie flew to India for face-to-face talks with Venky’s in October 2011, followed by further attempts to persuade the owners to sell the club last summer, the Indian family remain resistant to a sale and have repeatedly failed to respond to recent communication from the potential buyers.

But with Blackburn, who entertain fellow Championship strugglers Huddersfield Town on Tuesday night, facing up to the prospect of relegation to League One just 12 months after dropping out of the Premier League, Battersby insists that his group remains determined to save the club by ousting Venky’s.

“We are desperate to do something about it because there is a legacy of generations to protect here,” Battersby said. “Blackburn is a northern mill town and the club is at the heart of that community, but the picture just gets worse and worse under the current regime.

“We have been trying for 18 months to get Venky’s to engage with us and have offered them a sensible and credible plan to enable them to make a managed exit from the club.

"But apart from one meeting with the owners in Pune in October 2011 and discussions following relegation from the Premier League last May, we have had no response whatsoever.

“It has reached the stage where we are now emailing and texting them on a fortnightly basis in an effort to get them to sit down with us and discuss a way forward.

“Venky’s told us that their objective when buying the club was to grow their brand in the west, but since they sacked Sam Allardyce as manager in December 2010, their brand has had nothing but negative publicity and it has been one thing after another.

“It all led to the club dropping off a cliff last season when we were relegated from the Premier League.

“Their response to that has been a massive financial gamble aimed at getting the club promoted, but this season has been a disaster and there are now genuine fears of relegation and administration, which be a nightmare for the club.”

Although administration would open up the possibility of new owners of the club, Battersby concedes that any new investor would have to assume responsibility for Blackburn’s football debts, which are understood to be in the region of £30 million.

Having spent £46 million to complete their takeover of the club in November 2010, when the Walker Family Trust sold off its 99.9 per cent, Venky’s have since overseen a downward spiral of the 1995 Premier League champions which has resulted in relegation, the departure of four managers and prolonged supporter unrest.

Attendances at Ewood Park have plummeted this season, with just 8,635 supporters witnessing last month’s FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Millwall, while Saturday’s gate of 13,391 against Derby County was almost half the crowd of 26,144 who witnessed the club’s final home game in the Premier League last season.

Despite the turmoil and bleak outlook facing the club, Battersby insists that his group will continue to wait for Venky’s to accept their invitation for talks.

“There is a danger that the club is becoming almost unbuyable due to the financial picture and the utter nightmare that would follow any move into administration,” Battersby said.

“But we are still hoping for a conversation and the opportunity to talk to Venky’s because we are a group of people who care passionately for the club.

“I will be at the game as usual tonight, hoping we can get the win we desperately need, but I will probably be watching it through my fingers because of what is at stake.”