Blackburn Rovers relegated to League One; Indian owners face outrage: Everything you need to know

This will be Blackburn’s first season in the third tier since 1980 and fifth outside the top-two in their 142 year club history. They have thus become the first ever former Premier League champions to be relegated to the third tier of English football.

Local politicians, fans and former players have repeatedly called out the owners, India based Venky’s, to step away from the club and the voice has only gained volume in the aftermath of the drop. Venky’s are based in Pune and specialise in chicken meat processing and pharmaceutical products. Let’s take a complete look at the issue surrounding the club and the recent developments.

Rao family buy Blackburn Rovers in 43m pounds deal

In 2010, Blackburn had been searching for new owners for the past two years. Then the Rao family owned Venky’s bought 99.9 per cent stake in the East Lancashire club at 23m pounds on the club and also took over debt of 20m pounds.

Venky’s chairman Anuradha J Desai at the time said, “We will absolutely respect the Jack Walker (previous owner’s) legacy and will be actively supporting the organisation to ensure that Blackburn Rovers remains one of the best-run clubs within the Premier League.”

The debacle ever since

Despite promise of taking the club higher, investing in players and better transfer budgets, the owners made an extremely surprising and unpopular decision to give manager Sam Allardyce the sack. After taking over in November, Allardyce was removed as manager in December. At the time, Blackburn were 13th in the Premier League table. This handed the club’s coaching duties in Steve Kean’s hands. The statement from the owners tried to justify the bizarre decision by stating: “We have taken this decision as part of our wider plans and ambitions for the club.”

A season later, in 2011/12, Blackburn were relegated to the Championship after finishing 19th and thus bringing to an end their 11-year run in the top flight of English football.

Managerial carousel

In the seven years under Venky’s, Blackburn have been relegated twice and seen 10 managers. Kean left the post in 2012, after a controversial appointment, with Henning Berg replacing him. But following poor results, he too was sacked – after just 57 days. His successor – Michael Appleton – was given the boot after two months in another short stint for a manager.

Since then, the club has seen three managers come and go – Gary Bowyer, Paul Lambert and Owen Coyle. The current manager – Tony Mowbray – was appointed in February and his future would definitely be up in the air post the relegation.

Financial turmoil

If the club’s financial situation at the time of the takeover said a debt of 20 million pounds, it got atrocious within two years. By December 2012, the club was reported to be running at a loss of 2 million pounds a month.

In 2013-14, Blackburn Rovers posted pre-tax loss of 42.1 million pounds which placed them under Financial Fair Play embargo.

The club’s accounts of 2014-15 released to shareholders in 2016 revealed the club’s reduced annual losses to 17.2 million pounds but the debt had increased to 104.2 million from 79.8 million.

This brought about a proposal by local businessmen Ian Battersby and Ian Currie, through their company Seneca Partners. But their offer to help out the owners was dismissed by the Venky’s.

Drop to League One

Rather tragically for Blackburn Rovers, they drop a step lower into the third tier after a poorer goal difference alongside Birmingham and Nottingham Forest.

Under Mowbray, Blackburn failed to get out of the bottom three places in the table and took 22 points from 15 games, which was the ninth-best record from the moment he arrived.

The result and the outcome has already seen one member of staff leaving their post. Club’s Director of Football and Operations Paul Senior resigned from the club just a day after the relegation. He had been in the job for 123 days and had been the club’s point of conversation with current manager Mowbray. In fact, when Mowbray was handed an 18 month contract in February, there was no conversation with the owners and Senior had contacted him.

In a rare public statement, the owners said, “This is indeed a very sad situation and we are deeply hurt by these events. We share the same feelings as our supporters.”

“Notwithstanding this temporary setback, we are confident that the collective efforts of the team, under Tony’s leadership, will enable the club to achieve promotion back to the Championship next season.

“We have all witnessed the events of recent years, where teams have been relegated but have turned their clubs around and emerged stronger, and we are determined to see Blackburn Rovers do the same.”

Reactions from locals politicians, fans and former players

“For the club to drop into League One will knock Blackburn and East Lancashire off the map. It is really important the owners recognise the damage that’s been done not just to the football team but to the area,” said Graham Jones, the Labour MP for Hyndburn, which adjoins Blackburn, to Lancashire Telegraph. “They promised to sign Ronaldinho and make Rovers a top four club in the Premier League. At the moment they’ll be lucky to make Blackburn a top four club in League One,” he added.

“Venky’s need to engage with the fans and share their plans for the future. If they’re not interested, they need to move on. There has already been far too much damage to what should be a community asset,” said Blackburn Labour MP Kate Hollern.

“We are in a spiral of decline with owners who seem to have lost interest with their toy. The whole thing is a shambles,” said John Murray, chairman of the Blackburn Rovers Supporters Trust.

Even former players have asked for a change of ownership with the club in free-fall. Shearer took to his Twitter account to simple say, “Devastated for Rovers and for the fans. The owners deserve it”.

Another member of the 1995 title winning side, Kevin Gallacher, told BBC, “They have not understood football, they’ve not understood the people of Blackburn.”

To add to the Venky’s criticism, they haven’t been frequent to games over the years and weren’t present when the club went down to League One.