by Chris Dunlavy
HOURS before Paul Lambert turned his back on Blackburn, a map began doing the rounds on twitter. Purportedly grabbed from a Venky’s web page, showcasing their global reach, the UK branch appeared as a blue dot – just off the coast of northern Portugal.
Genuine or not, the punchline was grimly obvious: if India’s most reviled chicken peddlers can’t even find England, no wonder they are so rarely seen at Ewood Park.
Pune’s finest never set foot in the boardroom, let alone go to games. As Lambert’s act of desperation illustrates, they don’t even bother to pick up a phone.
When the Scot was persuaded to join the club in November, he was given assurances that the imminent lifting of a transfer embargo would allow him to splash some cash.
A month later, the ban was duly lifted and Lambert requested a meeting with the owners. He even offered to fly to India. Yet, six months on, his suitcase is still gathering dust. Lambert hasn’t even been granted a phone conversation.
To make matters worse, the Pune Phantoms didn’t even leave anyone to mind the till when they headed for the hills amid a storm of fan protests.
The infamous Shebby Singh is long gone. Managing director Derek Shaw quit in February, hours after attending a fiery fans’ forum. Communications chief Alan Myers followed suit in March.
Only commercial director Mike Cheston remains. The club’s Who’s Who? page should be retitled Who’s Left?
For a while, Lambert smiled through gritted teeth, helplessly promising supporters answers “in a bit of time” while begging for them himself.
Recently, however, the facade has crumbled, prompted by bitter memories of being hung out to dry at Aston Villa by an absent and equally mute owner in Randy Lerner.
“For everybody’s sake, we need clarity,” he said on April 16. “The supporters need to know what’s happening with the club. We’ve got lads out of contract, lads on loan, all unsure of what’s going on. They want answers and I can’t give them any.”
When the cameras stopped rolling, however, Lambert was more blunt. “I won’t deal with another f***ing Lerner,” he said. “I won’t go through that again.”
The warning signs were clear: communicate, provide funds or find a new patsy. Venky’s, 5,000 miles away, stuck their heads in the sand and Lambert walked.
Which means that, by the evening of May 7, Blackburn will have no chairman, no managing director, no chief executive or manager, debts touching £100m and no more parachute payments. However you spin it, that looks like a disaster waiting to happen.
Blackburn are skint. Since buying the club in 2010, Venky’s have suffered relegation and overseen a breathtaking £83m drop in shareholder value. Failure to engage with Lambert can only be read as an unwillingness to pour anything more into that black hole.
Yet, in terms of saleable assets, Jordan Rhodes – who joined Middlesbrough for £11m in the January window – represented the last piggybank left to smash. Like Bolton, Blackburn have been left to stand on their own two feet while being cut off at the knees.
And the parallels between these two fallen greats – an owner unwilling to invest, a worthless squad – are simply too stark to ignore.
The difference, of course, is that Bolton had some semblance of an infrastructure and a manager in Neil Lennon who could at least put up a fight.
With Lambert gone, the boardroom empty and any talented manager likely to run a mile, Blackburn don’t even have that.
Yet all is not lost. Venky’s could invest in one last attempt to save their scandalously mismanaged vanity project.
They could turn their £58m worth of investor loans into equity, making the club more attractive to buyers.
Blackburn fans, whose loyalty throughout three miserable seasons should shame the absent owners, must pray for one or the other. Because another summer of silence and stagnation will ensure they follow Bolton into the abyss.
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