The future looks black and burnt for Venky's Blackburn Rovers

Hard-selling chicken in the best of times — how difficult can it be? Not when the springboard for marketing success happens to be stars of the world's richest football league. They lick their lips and attention is a given even if some would find the idea of a meal minutes before a match ludicrous. In the worst of times, chicken-selling couldn't be more different. The product suddenly becomes a fodder for jabs, as Venky's, the poultry major from Pune and owner of English club Blackburn Rovers, learnt the hard way earlier this week.

A few enterprising fans slipped in a hen wearing Rovers colours and carrying the message "out" during the club's penultimate match of the season on Monday. Rovers lost the match and were duly relegated to Football League Championship, capping a miserable end to a season of poor football. Shorn of the glamour of the Premier league is one thing.

Saddled with a club stripped off the wealth of the world's richest league is another. Up to 74% of the club's income was seeded by the Premier League (see What the Relegation Means for Rovers). Venky's fits into the category of moneybags, but the philosophy of running a club solely on the format's monetary system now calls for a rethink.

Bad Investment?

Surely, the owners who once saw the club as a promising startup, now see it as a bad investment. But Venky's is not heeding to the hen's message for now. The club is not for sale, according to P Balaji Rao, wholetime director of Venky's. Rao told The Times of India on Thursday that his family was not expecting the relegation.

Seriously? If that were true, they were perhaps the only people on the planet to have not read the writing on the wall. Mike Delap, chief editor of Vital Blackburn, a supporters' website, says everyone knew relegation was a certainty based on the past 12 months.

"We deserved to go down based on our performances through the season and the table, as they say in England, doesn't lie." A quick recap of events since Venky's took over the club for 23 million pounds (around Rs 165 crore) in November 2010 can be surmised thus: a terrible first season when the club escaped relegation by a whisker, a disastrous second season and a controversial reign all through.

All the decisions- to sack Sam Allardyce as manager when the team were 13th in December 2010, promote Steve Kean in Allardyce's place from his backroom staff, sell Phil Jones for 16.5 million pounds to Manchester United and Chris Samba for a reported 12.5 million pounds to Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala. have been pilloried by fans and independent observers alike.

At Ewood Park, the Rovers' home base, the mood among fans is one of anger, resentment and despair, according to Kamran Inayat, chief reporter of brfcs.com, a website for the biggest Blackburn Rovers support group. "Blackburn is not a glamourous town. it has many social and economic problems. but the football team was the one source of genuine pride. It had flourished against all odds in the Premier League despite the vastly greater resources of rivals," says Inayat. But the Venky's reign has been the exact opposite, he says.

"They have ruined an established club and smashed all its structures." In short, he says, Venky's has "dismantled a once proud club and replaced it with a sheer embarrassment of a club". Venky's' reaction to the resentment of fans has been a studied silence until Thursday. The owners also chose to watch the club's descent into one crisis after the other from the relatively cooler confines of Pune. Never mind that it has riled fans further. But Venky's can no longer ignore the problems sprouting elsewhere.

Renewed Scrutiny

The group's ownership came under renewed scrutiny after an unflattering letter from the club's deputy chief executive Paul Hunt that urges the owners, among other things, to sack Kean was leaked recently. Hunt has since been sacked, although the club says he was relieved of his duties as a cost-cutting measure. Britain's political establishment, meanwhile, has taken note of the Rovers chaos.

MP Jack Straw has called for a probe into Venky's takeover. "The Premier League must now mount a full investigation into what business model Venky's thought they were buying and how much money has been made by those who sold them this model," he wrote in a column. For now, Venky's has decided to brave the storm of bad news. Rao said his family is "here for the long haul". It sure is a long haul, given that returning to top-flight football is never easy (see The Return to Premier League).

The Future

Simon Kuper, co-author of Soccernomics, says the future of Rovers depends on Venky's enthusiasm. "If they put a lot of money into Rovers [in the knowledge that the club will make a loss] it will probably go up again soon." Kuper says it all depends on money. "as we show in Soccernomics, wages are a very, very good predictor of league position in English football".

Nick Harris, editor of sportingintelligence.com, who published Hunt's letter, says Rovers faces a massive funding gap as its income from other sources will be down 40 million pounds year-on-year. Clubs often face massive financial hardship and even financial administration unless they sell the best players and radically slash the wage bill, he says. This is one choice before Venky's.

The other, says Harris, is to inject cash to maintain the squad and wages at the Premier League level. "This would give the club a better squad than most teams in the Championship and it will return to top flight quickly. But that injection will need to cover the income gap." Going by Venky's record so far, Harris suspects the owners will not invest money to cover the shortfall.

"Frankly I don't know what they will do, but they have a big decision to make." Harris says Venky's should have acted much sooner to avoid getting in this situation but ignored lots of advice, even from its own executives in Ewood Park.

Fans share the same sentiment. Delap says Venky's should have sought better independent advice on how to run a football club, should have been more financially aware, given the difficult world of football and certainly shouldn't have hidden when given the chance to explain. "They've led us all down a very rocky road." James Fallon, another fan, has a message for Venky's.

"If you cannot admit that you have made serious mistakes throughout your tenure of ownership, then quite frankly you don't deserve to be involved in any capacity at our football club. You should actively look for new owners." Fallon says fans want the club back. "Fans want to be proud of their club. Fans want to go to the game and enjoy themselves. Fans deserve better."

Worried Fans

Supporters like Fallon are understandably worried about the future of the club. They fear that Venky's has no interest whatsoever in the club. It is safe to say that the owners are yet to understand the gravitas of the situation or the sentiment of an English football fan. "the one who holds his club dear to his heart". In England, owners are just custodians of a club, with emphasis on the "just".

Fans are a club's heartbeat. That message is yet to travel to Pune. Delap's account can be an eye-opener for Venky's. "I've been a Blackburn Rovers fan for over 20 years and I'll never stop. We could suffer 10 more relegations and I'd still go to watch matches," he says. "Winning was never a condition of my support. I was bought up to be loyal no matter what." Is Venky's listening?