Chief executive Steve Waggott on Blackburn Rovers' new-look operation

Rovers brought in Gregg Broughton as a director of football, the first of its kind at the club since 2017, as part of their new re-structure.

Chief executive Waggott had previously had sole control of the day-to-day running of all areas of the club, with Venky’s advisor Suhail Pasha also on the ground at Ewood Park.

Upon Broughton’s arrival it was announced that he would oversee six areas of the club. They were the first-team, Academy, medical, athletic performance, recruitment and analysis.

Those are the areas covered by staff within the Senior Training Centre and Academy training centre at Brockhall.

Broughton will oversee those departments, while Waggott’s focus will be on the business side of the club, largely run out of the Ewood base.

Waggott had previously outlined the difficulties in the club running three separate sites, which had been among the reasons why the club had explored the possibility of merging their two training bases last summer.

Broughton and Waggott will work closely alongside each other, with both reporting into the owners.

On his role in the operation, the club’s chief executive said: “I’ve got the operational oversight of the whole business.

“The bandwidth has been stretched to the limit, to cover all different aspects of the club, because we’ve got three big centres.

“Gregg will look after the operational aspect of the training centre where the head of medical, performance director, all the different aspects of recruitment, analysts, they will all be line managed by Gregg.

“But we have to harmonise that with the support he needs from me as chief executive, budgets etc, and with the board so that we’re all aligned and that's all supported by the owners.”

Broughton’s initial focus will be on recruitment as Rovers look to build a squad to challenge in the Championship next season.

Waggott says the budgets have been agreed with the owners for the season, which includes money already committed to players under contract at the club.

That was described as ‘healthy’ by Broughton, with Rovers looking to target to bring in around six players in the summer transfer window.

Head coach Jon Dahl Tomasson will have the final say before Rovers push forward with a move for a player, identified by the recruitment team, and Waggott says that will be signed off by the board, should that be within the parameters set.

“We know our budgets, we’ve sent across our budgets across for the 2022/23 season,” he explained.

“There will be a defined player budget which quite a bit of it is committed to the players we’ve got but then there will be an amount set aside for how we want to use it.

“Gregg has got the budget lines, he knows what’s available to spend and he will then propose an acquisition of a player, whether that be a permanent transfer, a loan or a free transfer, and he’ll present that to me and the board and say ‘this is who we want’.

“If that’s in budget then we’re going to be aligned.”

Rovers are working without an embargo this summer, having been hit with a registration block last summer until their financial projections submitted to the EFL had been hit.

Those were helped by the £16.7m sale of the Senior Training Centre to a newly-formed company of the owners, which came three days before the cut-off point for such an agreement.

That was calculated in the figures for 2020/21, while the initial £15m sale of Adam Armstrong to Southampton was included in the 2021/22 accounts having come in August.

That has allowed Rovers some breathing room as the club continues to run at a loss.

“We’re okay on profit and sustainability. That’s the big one we have to keep our eye on,” Waggott said.

“I think with the tweaks we did to the structure last year, the sale of Armstrong in the 2021/22 accounts, so we’re looking solid.

“The owners are fully supportive again of the shortfall to have a competitive squad like we all want.”

Ticketing equates to at least 20 per cent of Rovers’ revenue, with the ‘loyalty deadline’ for season ticket holders looking to renew at the cheapest possible price ending yesterday.

Waggott says the costs associated with running the club continue to rise, with an additional £100,000 spent on pitch works this summer, with two areas having been ‘stitched’ in order to further protect the playing surface.

The club are still planning on a full-scale renovation of the playing surface which would cost around £2m, with the potential of funding being made available to help with that.

“The cost base is going through the roof,” Waggott added.

“The pitches, probably another £100,000 spend on those because of the increasing costs across the board.”