Post by Macmoish on Nov 10, 2010 7:31:45 GMT
David Conn/The Guardian
Trustees desperate to find safe pair of hands for Blackburn Rovers
Jack Walker's club has been in talks over a £25m takeover with an Indian poultry company, the only serious expression of interest they have had
Cracking the proposed takeover of Blackburn Rovers by Venky's, the Indian chicken and egg producer, is not as straightforward as it may seem. Instinctively, it is natural to choke on the very idea of the hometown club Jack Walker rebuilt being sold to a relatively obscure poultry company operating from the provincial Indian city of Pune.
On the website proudly charting its growth since buying the first 8,000 birds in 1972, Venkateshwara Hatcheries pays homage to its founding father, Padmashree Dr Banda Vasudev Rao. His dream, the company says, was: "To see India on the No1 position on the poultry map of the world."
Indeed Anuradha Desai, the company's current chair, discussing the planned acquisition of Rovers for £25m – which the club has agreed in principle – did not say it is mainly so the company can exploit Indian connections for Rovers, but to use the club's profile for the commercial benefit of Venky's.
"Football is a game which is very popular," she said. "The south-east [Asia] market, the Middle East market and even in the European market; it's a very famous game. I feel that the Venky's brand will get an immediate recognition if we take over this club, and that is the main reason why we are doing this."
At Ewood Park on Saturday, as Rovers were scraping a 2-1 victory over Wigan Athletic, the rain falling on the autumn trees visible behind the Riverside Stand, it was easy to reflect on how bizarre ownership of Premier League clubs is becoming. Blackburn are the quintessentially Lancashire club, formed in 1875, founder members of the Football League in 1888 with Burnley, Darwen, Accrington and Bolton. On Saturday, bouquets for the recently passed-away Rovers legend Ronnie Clayton rested on the statue of Walker, the hometown lad who sold his steel business in 1989 and spent slabs of the receipts – tax-free, because he had moved to Jersey – cantilevering the other three sides of Ewood Park and stockpiling a team to win the Premier League in 1995.
Walker never said explicitly what arrangements he had made for the club before he died in 2000, having left it in the hands of a Jersey trust which still owns the club. In 2007, the trust wrote off all the loans it and Walker had made, a total of £100m, and put the club up for sale, to be clear of the continuing cost of keeping them in the Premier League.
Since then, the trust has loaned a further £5m, extra funding which the chairman John Williams has always argued is crucial to provide Rovers with an edge. It is generally accepted that part of the trust's role is to ensure the club remains in safe hands, but since 2007 they have had no prospective buyers – proven to have the money – to whom they have felt confident in selling. Venky's, two weeks ago, finally became the first with whom Rovers have confirmed they are in serious discussions.
Clarifying her intentions after that announcement, Desai said she did hope to exploit the Premier League's growing popularity in her country. "There is a new generation of boys in India that are football mad but lots of them support Chelsea," she said. "I believe we can make the market for football in India grow. Having Indian owners will create a lot of interest here and I think we can try to create a whole nation of Blackburn Rovers fans."
That, beyond the surreal headline, is the serious business behind the deal. The Premier League's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, regards India to be a seriously growing market, accounting for most of the 40 million regular viewers of matches in the Asian territory covered by ESPN Star, a joint venture, which paid around £300m for the rights from 2010-13.
Venky's introduction to Blackburn was brokered by Kentaro, the ambitious sports marketing agency based in Switzerland. Its chief executive, Philippe Huber, was a key figure when the ousted prime minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, later convicted of corruption offences, bought Manchester City in 2007. Kentaro has an association with the SEM group, run by the experienced English football agent Jerome Anderson, who spearheaded City's initial signings under Thaksin, including Elano, Vedran Corluka and Martin Petrov. However, there is no suggestion that Anderson would have preferred-agent status at Blackburn if Venky's does buy the club.
Kentaro, whose prime operation is selling TV rights for international matches, will have presented ideas to Rovers, and Venky's, for exploiting the Premier League's popularity in India, although it is understood there are no detailed plans yet. Venky's has already made clear it is not going to be a benefactor, with cash ready to spend for the manager, Sam Allardyce.
"We won't need to buy expensive players," Desai said. "We can always lease them."
Yet turning the Premier League's global popularity, with growing television audiences and TV deals worth £1.2bn for 2010-13, into cash for the clubs, has proven stubbornly difficult.
Even Manchester United notched up only £6.4m income from overseas in the year to 30 June 2009, just 2% of total turnover, although their sponsorship deals benefit from global exposure. The idea that relatively poor people in India, or south-east Asia, will translate their support for clubs into buying merchandise in large numbers has not yet come to fruition.
Premier League research also shows that United, with Liverpool and Chelsea, are by far the most followed overseas. Clubs such as Blackburn, although watched by millions, barely register as brands, a point made by Wigan's owner Dave Whelan, who argues any sale to Venky's is "an absolute shame".
Whelan, who played for Blackburn before becoming the UK's most successful sports retailer as the owner of JJB Sports, said the takeover "doesn't sound right, and it doesn't look right". He argues it is misguided to believe being owned by an Indian company means Rovers will become big there.
"Overseas viewers are interested in the more successful clubs," Whelan said. "The smaller clubs are irrelevant. I can't see many Indian people wearing Blackburn Rovers shirts long term."
There are also questions about the power of Venky's to make it happen. The accounts the company makes available on its website, for Venky's (India) Limited, show a flourishing business with a profit for 2008-9 of 300m rupees – about £3m. Rovers sources, though, are convinced that the company's other enterprises, including chicken-vaccination products, mean Venky's is a very substantial business capable of taking the club on.
The reality, beyond the question of whether the Indian poultry company will be good for Blackburn Rovers, and vice-versa, is that the trustees of Jack Walker's estate have no appetite for remaining in charge. The truth is they know clubs like Blackburn cost money, they do not make money, and they never expected to be in charge for 10 years after Walker died.
The trustees, though, are responsible for passing the club to safe hands and a period of worry will follow, in Jersey and in Blackburn, if they do indeed pluck out Venky's as the future owner of the club that Jack built.
www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/nov/10/venkys-blackburn-rovers-takeover-proposed
Trustees desperate to find safe pair of hands for Blackburn Rovers
Jack Walker's club has been in talks over a £25m takeover with an Indian poultry company, the only serious expression of interest they have had
Cracking the proposed takeover of Blackburn Rovers by Venky's, the Indian chicken and egg producer, is not as straightforward as it may seem. Instinctively, it is natural to choke on the very idea of the hometown club Jack Walker rebuilt being sold to a relatively obscure poultry company operating from the provincial Indian city of Pune.
On the website proudly charting its growth since buying the first 8,000 birds in 1972, Venkateshwara Hatcheries pays homage to its founding father, Padmashree Dr Banda Vasudev Rao. His dream, the company says, was: "To see India on the No1 position on the poultry map of the world."
Indeed Anuradha Desai, the company's current chair, discussing the planned acquisition of Rovers for £25m – which the club has agreed in principle – did not say it is mainly so the company can exploit Indian connections for Rovers, but to use the club's profile for the commercial benefit of Venky's.
"Football is a game which is very popular," she said. "The south-east [Asia] market, the Middle East market and even in the European market; it's a very famous game. I feel that the Venky's brand will get an immediate recognition if we take over this club, and that is the main reason why we are doing this."
At Ewood Park on Saturday, as Rovers were scraping a 2-1 victory over Wigan Athletic, the rain falling on the autumn trees visible behind the Riverside Stand, it was easy to reflect on how bizarre ownership of Premier League clubs is becoming. Blackburn are the quintessentially Lancashire club, formed in 1875, founder members of the Football League in 1888 with Burnley, Darwen, Accrington and Bolton. On Saturday, bouquets for the recently passed-away Rovers legend Ronnie Clayton rested on the statue of Walker, the hometown lad who sold his steel business in 1989 and spent slabs of the receipts – tax-free, because he had moved to Jersey – cantilevering the other three sides of Ewood Park and stockpiling a team to win the Premier League in 1995.
Walker never said explicitly what arrangements he had made for the club before he died in 2000, having left it in the hands of a Jersey trust which still owns the club. In 2007, the trust wrote off all the loans it and Walker had made, a total of £100m, and put the club up for sale, to be clear of the continuing cost of keeping them in the Premier League.
Since then, the trust has loaned a further £5m, extra funding which the chairman John Williams has always argued is crucial to provide Rovers with an edge. It is generally accepted that part of the trust's role is to ensure the club remains in safe hands, but since 2007 they have had no prospective buyers – proven to have the money – to whom they have felt confident in selling. Venky's, two weeks ago, finally became the first with whom Rovers have confirmed they are in serious discussions.
Clarifying her intentions after that announcement, Desai said she did hope to exploit the Premier League's growing popularity in her country. "There is a new generation of boys in India that are football mad but lots of them support Chelsea," she said. "I believe we can make the market for football in India grow. Having Indian owners will create a lot of interest here and I think we can try to create a whole nation of Blackburn Rovers fans."
That, beyond the surreal headline, is the serious business behind the deal. The Premier League's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, regards India to be a seriously growing market, accounting for most of the 40 million regular viewers of matches in the Asian territory covered by ESPN Star, a joint venture, which paid around £300m for the rights from 2010-13.
Venky's introduction to Blackburn was brokered by Kentaro, the ambitious sports marketing agency based in Switzerland. Its chief executive, Philippe Huber, was a key figure when the ousted prime minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, later convicted of corruption offences, bought Manchester City in 2007. Kentaro has an association with the SEM group, run by the experienced English football agent Jerome Anderson, who spearheaded City's initial signings under Thaksin, including Elano, Vedran Corluka and Martin Petrov. However, there is no suggestion that Anderson would have preferred-agent status at Blackburn if Venky's does buy the club.
Kentaro, whose prime operation is selling TV rights for international matches, will have presented ideas to Rovers, and Venky's, for exploiting the Premier League's popularity in India, although it is understood there are no detailed plans yet. Venky's has already made clear it is not going to be a benefactor, with cash ready to spend for the manager, Sam Allardyce.
"We won't need to buy expensive players," Desai said. "We can always lease them."
Yet turning the Premier League's global popularity, with growing television audiences and TV deals worth £1.2bn for 2010-13, into cash for the clubs, has proven stubbornly difficult.
Even Manchester United notched up only £6.4m income from overseas in the year to 30 June 2009, just 2% of total turnover, although their sponsorship deals benefit from global exposure. The idea that relatively poor people in India, or south-east Asia, will translate their support for clubs into buying merchandise in large numbers has not yet come to fruition.
Premier League research also shows that United, with Liverpool and Chelsea, are by far the most followed overseas. Clubs such as Blackburn, although watched by millions, barely register as brands, a point made by Wigan's owner Dave Whelan, who argues any sale to Venky's is "an absolute shame".
Whelan, who played for Blackburn before becoming the UK's most successful sports retailer as the owner of JJB Sports, said the takeover "doesn't sound right, and it doesn't look right". He argues it is misguided to believe being owned by an Indian company means Rovers will become big there.
"Overseas viewers are interested in the more successful clubs," Whelan said. "The smaller clubs are irrelevant. I can't see many Indian people wearing Blackburn Rovers shirts long term."
There are also questions about the power of Venky's to make it happen. The accounts the company makes available on its website, for Venky's (India) Limited, show a flourishing business with a profit for 2008-9 of 300m rupees – about £3m. Rovers sources, though, are convinced that the company's other enterprises, including chicken-vaccination products, mean Venky's is a very substantial business capable of taking the club on.
The reality, beyond the question of whether the Indian poultry company will be good for Blackburn Rovers, and vice-versa, is that the trustees of Jack Walker's estate have no appetite for remaining in charge. The truth is they know clubs like Blackburn cost money, they do not make money, and they never expected to be in charge for 10 years after Walker died.
The trustees, though, are responsible for passing the club to safe hands and a period of worry will follow, in Jersey and in Blackburn, if they do indeed pluck out Venky's as the future owner of the club that Jack built.
www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/nov/10/venkys-blackburn-rovers-takeover-proposed
