Open letter to Blackburn Rovers owners Venky’s

Dear Mrs Desai

As the civic leader for the area most connected to your football club, I am sure you will not be surprised that I have growing concerns about the reports that I am getting of the chaos that is currently surrounding Blackburn Rovers.

I speak for all at the Council, including those who support other teams, in recognising how important the Rovers is to the town and its people.

When the team won the Premier League in 1995 it gave the town an enormous feel good factor and raised the profile of the area both nationally and internationally and benefited the local economy.

Continuation in the Premier League has benefited businesses and local employment enormously.

I am therefore concerned to hear both in the papers and in the media that the club, which used to be one of the best run in the country, appears to have very few senior executives running the club in Blackburn on a day to day basis.

This accounts for much of the frustration that has been repeatedly expressed by the fans (not just the ones calling for the manager to be sacked), the clubs commercial sponsors and recently the Sports Correspondent of the local Lancashire Telegraph newspaper.

I am sure you are aware of these matters and may be taking steps to address them. However, for whatever reason there appears to serious communication problems between the club and its stakeholders which are fuelling the frustration that people are feeling.

To that end I am inviting you and the other owners to meet with representatives of the Council together with any other interested parties that you feel would benefit from attendance.

The purpose of the meeting would be to give all sides the opportunity to discuss the present problems being experienced at the Club.

My wish would be to explore and agree better lines of communications between us and to get a better understanding of the approach that the owners intend to take to ensure the club goes forward. We would also be very happy to look at ways that the Council may be able to help in any way.

I am aware that you and your brothers are busy people but given the precarious position the club is now in a meeting at the earliest opportunity would be preferred.

As I and others in the Council are constantly being contacted about these issues I would appreciate a prompt response to this correspondence.

Yours sincerely Cllr. Kate Hollern Leader of the Council