Rovers relegation leads to no tears in India
Reuters - Tuesday 08 May 2012, 09:27
As Blackburn Rovers supporters in
Lancashire awoke on Tuesday struggling to cope with the club's
relegation from the Premier League, there was little sympathy to
be found on the streets of India, the home of the club's owners.
In a country of 1.2 billion cricket fans, some 60 million
Indians watched the English Premier League's 2009/10 season,
roughly the same as Britain's entire population.
Most of them, however, never really cared for the former
Premier League champions and there was hardly any excitement
around Indian poultry giant Venky's 23 million pound takeover of
Blackburn in November, 2010.
The same aloofness greeted Blackburn's relegation from the
Premier League following their 1-0 home defeat to Wigan Athletic
on Monday.
"I didn't really care about Blackburn. For me they were just
another football club. I felt no special affinity towards them.
I viewed them as another club my team [Arsenal] had to beat to
reach the top four," Swaroop Swaminathan, a student at Newcastle
University, in England, told Reuters.
Abhishek Iyer, a third year student at a premier engineering
institute in Rajasthan was equally dismissive.
"I don't care about them - didn't like them as a team much
and [having] Indian owners don't change that. Reasonably
satisfied they're gone," he said.
All India Football Federation (AIFF) Vice President Subrata
Dutta echoed a similar sentiment.
"Venky's has not invested in Indian football... apart from
one exhibition match between Pune FC and the club, Blackburn
Rovers has in no way contributed for Indian football. So we are
not bothered about their relegation," Dutta told Reuters by
phone.
"I don't think they have served our purpose or even their
purpose. Being a Pune-based company, I would have been happy if
they would have invested in Pune FC rather than Blackburn
Rovers," he added.
Bhaswar Goswami, executive director of Celebrity Management
Group, felt Venky's never made a real effort to engage the fans
either in England or in India.
"I feel they did not have the proper marketing strategy.
There was no real effort to connect with the huge number of
Indian soccer fans. They once came to play in Pune but it was
not enough.
"Even to the fans in Lancashire, they lacked a clear vision.
They have to take the fans there in confidence.
"There is strong emotional attachment to the club and
Venky's need to honour that. They have to tell the fans where
the club is heading."
Goswami, whose company organised a friendly between
Argentina and Venezuela in Kolkata last year, believed Venky's
might still hang around Ewood Park despite facing Championship football next season.
"Selling the club is the easiest way to get out of the
trouble. But as an Indian business entity, I expect them to
stick around.
"To leverage something from a club like Rovers, it has to be
a long-term plan. They need to look at it differently. I still
believe it can be a fantastic property if you have a concrete
plan for the next five-six years," he added.