Blackburn : Where are they heading?

Blackburn Football Club were recently acquired by Indian poultry firm Venky’s for a colossal sum of 37 mn $. A move that was heralded as the start of Indian giants foraying into the lucrative English football club ownership business, has already gone sour. The owners, in an ill conceived move, decided to stamp their authority on the club by sacking the vastly experienced Sam Allardyce as coach only a few weeks after the takeover. As expected, the sacking did not go down too well with the Blackburn faithful and has left the football fraternity bewildered.

Since the sacking, Blackburn have played two matches. They mustered a draw against struggling West Ham and were soundly beaten by Stoke City. Allardyce sympathizers, of which there are many in Blackburn and elsewhere, are already chuckling. As it is, the aspirations of the club have never been too high. A mid table finish comfortably above the relegation zone is deemed a decent season. Hence the sacking of the club manager at a time when they were sitting pretty at 13th in the table, has left a lot of fans bewildered and some fuming. Now some of them fear for the safety of the club under Steve Kean, who used to be the reserve team coach. It has not been a popular move in the players’ circle as well, with club captain Christopher Samba and New Zealand defender Ryan Nelsen already making their dis pleasures known over the media. Sam Allardyce himself, who was enthusiastic about the new ownership before getting the sack, was at a loss to explain the developments.

From a neutral’s perspective, how was the move? Well, even though I am not too big a fan of Sam Allardyce and his footballing ways, but sacking him with the club doing reasonably well and what is increasingly looking like without a backup alternative, was naive to say the least. The inexperience of the Indian owners in football business showed to the fullest extent. Media speculation is rife that Venky’s want Blackburn to play eye catching football and hence Sam Allardyce hardly fit the bill for them. Well, it’s all very well to want to play eye catching football, but what do you do if you don’t have the required personnel to do that? Survival is the first and foremost objective. If you ask me, I can see two factors which might have prompted the inexperienced owners to sack Allardyce so soon. One was the humiliating 7-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester United, the first game that the new owners came to see. Second, Bolton Wanderers, a club which is often clubbed together with Blackburn when describing their style of play(which has been ugly, to put it bluntly) seem to have altered their style of play under Owen Coyle and have been playing really well this season.

Only time will tell whether Venky’s get away with this rather reckless move. But one thing is certain – they are highly inexperienced in football management and henceforth will be well advised to make such important footballing decisions in consultation with others at the club who know a thing or two about football. One can only hope that other Indian tycoons who are looking at buying football clubs abroad come better prepared.

Here’s hoping for Queen’s Park Rangers to be the ones. Cheers!