BLACKBURN Rovers fan groups are set to fly to India in a bid to force a meeting with controversial club owners Venky’s.

The announcement came at a public meeting in Blakey’s Cafe Bar to discuss the present and future ownership of the beleaguered Championship club.

At the two-and-a-half hour meeting, attended by over 500 fans, plans were hatched to hold protests at the club’s home fixture against Wolverhampton Wanderers on October 29, which is to be screened live on Sky Sports.

Fans will be encouraged to only enter the stadium on 18 minutes and leave on 75 minutes. That is to symbolise 1875, the year the club was formed.

The event was organised by the BRFC Action Group in conjunction with the Rovers Trust, the club’s official supporters’ trust, and the Ewood Blues. It was backed by other fan organisations.

Rovers Trust chairman Wayne Wild, who last month called for Venky’s to put the club up for sale, said: “Our view is that we want to take this to India.

“Our view is that we have a delegation of people who together go out as a very professional set of people and offer to meet the owners in their own back yard.

“One target date we have got is January 15. England play India in a one day international in Pune. And we think it could give us a lot of exposure. Then we want a very sustained campaign after that.

“We will set up a meeting and if they don’t turn up then the campaign continues and we continue that in India itself. It’s going to be expensive and we’re going to need a fighting fund to put that together.”

Fan Alan ‘Birdy’ Birkbeck said: “As far as the protest is concerned I had the idea of getting as many people who have been stopping away to come back for the Wolves game. We go in, we stop in the concourse until 18 minutes, come upstairs and leave our seats on 75 minutes.

“I don’t want to boycott the club but I want them to see what it is like with a lot of people in the stadium and what it’s like with every seat empty. If that is what they want they are going the right way to get it.”

BRFC Action Group chairman Mark Fish said this was the ‘first step’ in what he believes will be a long battle and he confirmed there would be future meetings.

Mr Fish, who said the group has had dialogue with other fans protestors groups including Charlton Athletic, said: “Blackburn Rovers is a proud community football club but the Venky’s don’t care about that. It is a complete irrelevance to them.

“There is a generation of supporters the club is in big trouble of losing and the Venky’s don’t care about that either.

“We have a concerned supporter base and tonight we have come together looking for unity. We have got a duty to protect this football club for future generations.”

Mr Fish said that Ian Battersby and Ian Currie, who failed in a bid to to buy a stake in the club via their company Seneca Partners earlier this year, remained interested in investing in the club.

Other proposals raised during the event included; forcing the FA to make fan representation on club boards a legal requirement, boycotting games and launching a advertising campaign in the Indian media against Venky’s ownership.

Any fans with skills they believe could help a protest were asked to contact the trust. 

Nobody from the club was present at the meeting. No-one from Venky’s was available for comment.