Qatar Investment Authority or QIA are sovereign fund that the government of Qatar. To To give you an idea of how much money the QIA has to invest in they control 17% of Volkswagen the car company.

The story of QIA interest in Blackburn Rovers was reported in the UK press first in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph on Saturday and then in the People nation newspaper on Sunday

This was then followed by a series of denial from that they are interested in selling which was reported by Andy Cryer in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph and Alan Nixon in the Mirror.

On reading these report it really made my blood boil, since Rover have been taken over by Venkys its been a disaster, thankfully Andy Cryer has just documented the first 12 months of rein. I think that is a fair report on what has happend in the last 12 months. The Lancashire Evening Telegraph has also asked the several experts about what they think of Venkys first 12 months in charge of Rovers. Bryan Douglas, Jason Wilcox, Simon Garner and Kabir Mandrekar give their views.

For me the most interesting view is from Kabir how comments who says Venkys are doing well to raise the profile of Football and Blackburn Rovers in India. That is great news as it was always Venkys aim to raise Blackburn Rovers in India. BUT that is only half the story as we are currently 19th in the Premier League ONE place off the bottom of the league. Would India and Indian football fans be interested in following a team that in The Championship? Would our owners Venkys be interested in our team when they can no longer get the PR they want for themselves and the club?

Premiership football is currently  being broadcast to over 600 million people in over 200 countries worldwide. The Championship on the other had while they love to roll out the stats that it was the wealthiest non-top flight football division in the world, and the sixth richest division in Europe and also the Football League Championship announced a total attendance (including postseason) of 9.8 million, which it said was the fourth highest total attendance for a European football division. Which is all great but pales in to insignificance compared the Premier League.

Currently here in Thailand we get Leicester City games on terrestrial television as they are owned by Thais. Of course the following Leicester have compared to Premier League clubs is low. You can see Premier League shirts all around Thailand. All the pubs and clubs show the premier league games are shown live here on Television. Yes that includes the 3pm (UK Time) kick offs. If an EPL game is being played its being shown live here in Thailand no matter what the local time, that is also the case for Singapore.  So its very attractive for a company to own football club and also very attractive for Sponsor to be associated with Premier League football.

The Premier League know this so they have the Asian Trophy so that fans and Sponsors can interact. As far as I know The Championship has nothing like this and in fact has very little exposure to Asia in general.

So with QIA interested in adding Blackburn to their football portfolio which includes PSG from France and Malaga from Spain. I think its time I try to help my club before we are relegated and join the list of clubs that have struggled since dropping out of the Europe’s Richest Football League. For some clubs, including Burnley, Leeds United,Charlton Athletic, Nottingham Forest, Oldham Athletic, Sheffield Wednesday, Bradford City, Leicester City, Queens Park Rangers, Southampton, and Wimbledon who have failed to win immediate promotion back to the Premier League, financial problems, including in some cases administration or even liquidation have followed. QPR are the only team in that list who have made it back to the Premier League, Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday have both been down to or are currently in League Two. So relegation out of the EPL is very frightening prospect for any small town club.

I look forward to talking to other Rovers Fans either here at my blog, via this thread on BRFCS or via twitter @BKKRover

For fans of other clubs and media who think things are not as bad Rovers fans are saying take a read of this article in The People. As far as I know the email in question was never answered by Venkys.

What Rovers fans and any football fan wants is their team to win games. The larger clubs can also play with style and win games. But most clubs just want to win games, to stay in the Premier League and have a good run in the cup. Really attack the big boys when they come to Ewood Park and try their best to get something from the away games to the Big Four. c

Fans don’t care where there manager comes from, what colour they are or even what sex they are IF they are winning.

I guess this is a good time for me to say that I will not also be talking about Sam Allardyce apart from to say that Sam was a good example of style over substance. He did win 34% of the games and led Rovers away from the relegation after Paul Ince and Sam does deserve a massive amount of respect for that escape.

Anyway back to Steve Kean who is currently Rovers Manager, personally I have two issues with Steve Kean:

1. Talking to the Press and not engaging his brain.  Rovers are not one of the most popular clubs in the Premier League but we deserve our place and have been a very well run club. If I am honest we have over achieved under Sam and under Hughes. I know Steve is new to being a manager and mentioned in the BRFCS Podcast #7  that the biggest diffidence between being manager and being a coach was dealing with the press. So Steve knows that he he is not the best or is uncomfortable with dealing with the press or probably more likely he was unaware the amount of time and interest from the press.  So why oh why when Rovers signed Goodwillie did Kean compare him to a “Young Wayne Rooney”? Sure big up the player but was there any need to compare him to the best English striker of the current generation? Now we move on the Junior Hoillets contract negotiations on deadline day it was reported on Sky Sports News that Junior was 24 hours away from  signing a new contract. Which included the quote “We are confident it will be done and dusted in the next 24 hours.” from Steve Kean. Then 8 days later we read in the LET that contract negotiations are still on going. Then the day after the we are told the “I think it will be done in the next couple of days” by Kean. So 9 days after we were told the new deal would be signed in 24 hours Hoilett has still not signed. Another 9 days pass Kean is back in the LET saying its been “slow progress” getting Junior to sign his contact.  Really Steve you think its been slow? You told us on the first of Sept that it would be singed in 24 hours, now 21 days later he has still not signed. This is just one example where Kean has looked foolish when talking to the press. There are plenty of other examples. He needs training when it comes to dealing with the press and he has to 100% understand when he says something in the press, fans read it and make up their own mind. Far to often Kean has come across as out of touch from the fans.
2. Spinning the facts: Blackburn have not had the best run of results since Kean took over as manager but no mater how we play or what result is Kean seems to be ridiculously positive. If we look at the league table Rovers have played 5 games and have 4 points and are sitting in 16th and 1 points about the the relegation zone. We have not played any of the teams in the top 5 and our next two games are against top 5 teams. We have played 2 teams who are in the top 10, in Villa and Wolves and on both cases we were hammered. In the Villa game we lucky it was not a lot more goals. In the  Wolves game when the 2nd Wolves goal went in Rovers generated very very few chances and at some point looked to be completely lost and out of the game. WOLVES boss Mick McCarthy said “Once we scored in the second half I felt we controlled the game.” The 2nd Wolves goal went in on the 51st minute, so for 39 mins Rovers were not at the races at all. So what does Kean say about this. “We need to strengthen in different areas and make sure we have a competitive squad.” Great so you have had all the time in between the seasons and after the first game you figure out the squad is not up to the job.  99% of Rovers fans could have told you that at the end of last season. Anyway on to the Villa game Rovers lost 3-1 and were lucky it was not more. Here are the comments from Andy Cryer of the LET. “CryerRovers: Terrible goal to give away. Agbonlahor walks past Salgado and brilliantly bends shot into top corner from far left”  then “CryerRovers: Far too much space. Agbonlahor holds ball up squares to Heskey and scuffs one home from edge of area.”  and “CryerRovers: This game feels like a dead game now. Going through the motions” Please not that going through the motions quote from Andy was made in the first half of the Villa game. So the game ends 3-1 and what does Kean say about the game? ”I thought we started the game well. If we look back at the goal we gave away, the first was fantastic from Agbonlahor, but we’re disappointed with the second because it took an unfortunate deflection off Pedersen.” Ah that’s OK nothing to worry about bottom of the league and never really in the first 2 games. Now we all know the Manager can not come out and say well we all know Jason Roberts only gets 5 goals a season but we still playing him as he is a nice chap.

So if I take this as a true story, what would I say to the owners? Now I know a lot people would like to say, look you guys are Muppets and you have no clue what you are doing. But saying something like that does not help anyone at all and its also not true that Venkys have got every decision wrong . So where do we start, well I would start at the top.

1. Get the best Chairman you can in an office at Ewood ASAP!! Now this is not going to be an easy task but Rovers need Chairman ASAP. Of course this person has to be someone that Venkys trust and respect. We also know that Venkys have been looking and tried to get Adam Pearson. Getting Adam Pearson would be have been brilliant. He is a very sensible guy and has completely turned around Hull after they were relegated and went in to financial meltdown. We also know Venkys want Rao Venkys son to move on to the board. This is not bad news, its not good news this is GREAT news. Why is this great news because it shows Venkys are here for the long term. It also means that Rao son really could Rovers in to his blood. We all know that football is a very exciting and passionate sports once it gets in your blood, its really really difficult to shake. With Rao Jnr getting on the board he will be the link from Ewood back to India. Which again is why a new Chairman is a critical appointment. This is the person who is going help Rao Jnr learn about the game and to learn about the business of a football club. Trying to be helpful, I would like suggest that talking to David Dein he very well respected in the world of football and knows the game here in the UK backwards. To say it would be a coup if Rovers  could sign David Dein is a complete understatement it would be a monumental upgrade of the Rovers back office.  Now I am not saying David Dein would come to Rovers but its got be worth a phone call.  He may or may not accept the job offer but he will have some ideas and names to suggest in Football Black Book. Now Venkys might decide to look outside of world of football and get a chairman from somewhere else. Daniel Levy and Andrew Appleby of Totthenham Hotspur and Derby County both come from the Financial World and run very good football clubs. It would be remiss of me while talking about Blackburn and the position of Chairman with out mentioning John Williams. I think finding someone as good and as well liked at Blackburn and around the footballing world is going to be incredibly difficult. But John is no longer with Rovers and there is no point looking back when you are trying to move forward.