Who is to blame at Blackburn?
With club on brink, the soap opera shows no signs of ending
BLACKBURN ROVERS’ demise has involved agents profiteering, perceived treachery, a bitter secret lawsuit, Gary Neville’s ‘Teletubbbies’ house, baffled managers, jaw-dropping contracts and fan revolt. And that was just year one.
In a country where football is in the fabric of every community, it should serve as a cautionary lesson about governance. History says it will not be heeded.
It can be revealed that the Rao family’s 2010 takeover was subject to a formal Football Association investigation for some years. Technically, it could be re-opened.
The Premier League winners of 1995 are the odds-on favourites to go down today. They would be the first Premier League winners to fall so far.
It is either them, Nottingham Forest or Birmingham City who will join Rotherham and Wigan in League One. Demotion is not certain, but Rovers’ fate is out of their hands.
In some senses, it has not been for years, not since the ‘Venky’s years’ began. As the only writer to travel to Pune to meet the Rao family, I visited their mansion, saw their collection of cars, had access to their business empire to properly assess their fortune (£2billionplus), and got to know them.
A few private insights into their world may shed light. A Thursday afternoon in July 2011. My phone rings. It is Mrs Desai. ‘Shall we buy Raul from Schalke in Germany?’ she asks. The Spanish superstar was available, on around £6m a year. Blackburn were planning for their 2011-12 Premier League campaign.
‘If you don’t trust your manager or CEO, get replacements you do trust to help,’ I told her. She pressed for advice, so I said Raul was unhappy because he rated his then manager, Ralf Rangnick, as not ‘high-profile’ enough. ‘He’s hardly going to rate Steve Kean,’ I added.
I said if she had £6m to spend, maybe Reading’s Shane Long, age 24, proven, and available for around £4.5m, might be a better fit. Mrs Desai thanked me. Then made an offer for Raul. Raul rejected it. Long went to West Brom.
The perception of Venky’s as remote and uncaring was prevalent. But, early on at least, they cared. Before a relegation crunch at Wolves in 2011, one of Mrs Desai’s brothers, Venky Rao, texted seeking a suitable temple near Molineux to pray, pre-match. Rovers won 3-2 and stayed up.
Venky Rao asked me to meet him in summer 2011 at a Park Lane hotel. We took his limo around the corner to dinner at another fivestar hotel. He confided they had bought a house. ‘From a footballer, Gary Neville,’ he said. ‘For around £6m.’ An architect was flown from India to make changes to the bathrooms: gold-plating them.
The house was used less than planned as the atmosphere became hostile. The Rao brothers left a game at Wigan at half-time, spooked. Unknown to anyone, Venky Rao felt vulnerable because he’d once been the victim of an attempted carjack and possible kidnap.
As Blackburn were relegated in 2012, concerned parties ranged from lifelong fans to long-serving Ewood Park insiders. Mrs Desai trusted nobody but employees from home. One of them, a trainee hatcheries manager, went to France to knock on club doors to inquire about transfer targets, in order to avoid rip-off agents. The ploy failed.
Mrs Desai and her brothers were embarrassed. ‘Mortified and ashamed,’ says one source. They were loathe to admit being so naive to let third parties effectively run their club, and reticent to complain to the authorities. ‘Our club, our fault,’ is how they saw it.
So chaotic did matters become after Blackburn’s relegation that one later manager phoned me on a Sunday morning to ask what was going on at the club he was working for. ‘Anyone’s guess,’ I said.
On and on the soap opera has gone. Whatever happens today, it will run a while yet. And the FA seem as far from ever in having effective structures around fit and proper owners, and as importantly, fit and proper de facto control of clubs.