Newsletter - April 2025

AGM:

The AGM of We Are The Rovers, the Blackburn Rovers Supporters Trust will take place as follows:

7pm Prompt
Wednesday 25th June
At Blackburn Library (upstairs), entrance via Northgate, Blackburn.

Non-members are welcome to attend.  However you must be a paying member to be nominated for our Board and to vote on any issues (Join via www.roverstrust.com)

We will be holding a free raffle for all attendees on the night.

We are looking for additional Board members. Meetings are hybrid Zoom and in person. This is unpaid and is voluntary.  We are looking to extend and diversify our board and encourage nominations from fans of all ages and backgrounds. We are particularly in need of adding skills in marketing and social media management.  Please advise if you wish to be nominated by emailing peterridehalgh@talktalk.net with the email subject ‘WATR Board Nomination’ before 15th June at the very latest.

We look forward to seeing you on 25th June.

Mike Graham
Chair

WATR STATEMENT re BLACKBURN ROVERS:

On 3rd January 2025 we wrote to the club to advise them we believed the Rao family’s continued ownership of Blackburn Rovers had become untenable and called for them to sell the club.

Due to our Memorandum of Understanding with the club, we have since been attempting to arrange one of our overdue mandated meetings as a matter of urgency. We allowed leeway during this time while the club sought to appoint a managerial replacement, and after us chasing up this request numerous times we were granted a meeting with senior club executives on Tuesday 1st April. Our agenda items and questions provided to the Club are listed at the end of this Statement; however, the ultimate reason for our meeting was to press for a face-to-face meeting with the Club Owners.  Sadly, the key attendee the Club’s Chief Operating Officer Suhail Pasha/Sheikh who had earlier confirmed his attendance was instead making media appearances to defend the Club’s ownership before going “travelling”.

Despite assurances of his attendance, and our willingness to accommodate his diary, COO Suhail Pasha/Sheikh failed to attend. This wasn’t the first time he has done so and indeed has always appeared reluctant to engage despite the best efforts of the WATR board and other club officials.  We have instead been offered a meeting with the Chief Executive Steve Waggott prior to the Middleborough game this Friday evening.

Prior to the release of 2024/25 season tickets, We Are The Rovers met regularly with club staff to discuss our proposals for them.

After a tumultuous season we were encouraged that some of our ideas had been taken on board. We would have liked them to have gone a lot further and committed to a strategy designed around 3 core activities: Recruitment, Retention and Re-engagement. We were however hopeful that the modest reduction in the early bird phase, and significant savings across concessionary tickets would mitigate the inevitable drop off due to events that occurred during the season.

In a previous meeting with the Rovers executive team, Suhail Pasha/Sheikh told us that:

“The biggest mistake we (Venky’s) ever made was listening to Steve (Waggott) and Fraser (Read) and reducing season tickets by £30. What do you want next year, a reduction of £150?”

Fraser Read had left the club by this point with his ticketing duties assumed by Yasir Sufi, and Suhail has taken all responsibility for ticketing matters away from Steve Waggott.

When we pointed out that an extraordinarily high number (26%) of season ticket holder had opted not to renew due to incredibly poor performances on the pitch and chaotic events behind the scenes, we were told we can’t keep using transfer window failures as an excuse, and that the core support of Blackburn Rovers is only around 6,000 fans.

Yasir Sufi also told us to forget about re-engagement with lapsed fans, and that getting the new generation of support in was where their priorities lay.

This season there has been very little engagement from the club regarding our proposals. We have been asked how we think we can add thousands to the gate, but any solution offered that involves expenditure or price reduction has been dismissed out of hand.

Furthermore, we have continued to highlight the importance of improved communication and engagement with the wider fanbase. While Steve Waggott has been open and approachable and agreed readily to meet and discuss all matters with WATR as an entity, the club has failed to extend this to the fanbase with initiatives we suggested, such as reinstating some form of open consultation meetings ignored. This appears to be a directive from above the level of CEO. Presently we are concerned that the club are completely unprepared for upcoming changes to Fan Engagement rules that form part of the Football Governance Bill, and threats to cease engagement with us, contrary to the terms of our MOU, due to perceived criticism of their running of the club would be in direct conflict with Government recommendations and EFL rules.

As an organisation formed by and for the benefit of Supporters, we can only echo the collective fan statement dated 28th of March as regards Suhail Pasha/Sheikh. Our experience leads us to believe his input is detrimental to the desires of Rovers fans and to the success of our club.

To reiterate our previous stance, the one constant throughout the Venky’s tenure has been Suhail Pasha/Sheikh. While his title has changed in that time, his role as advisor/conduit/owners representative has remained broadly the same. With the Rao family remaining absent for over a decade he appears to hold a lot of power.

We feel that the only acceptable advice for Suhail to pass on to the Rao family is to finally do the right thing and sell the club. New owners who care for the club and will treat Rovers and its supporters with the respect we deserve are long overdue.

The WATR agenda items provided in advance to the Club are as follows:

‘In preparation for the meeting next week, we have come up with the following points for discussion.  I look forward to receiving confirmation of the meeting start time.  

1. Club and Owner aspirations
2. Fan Engagement
3. First Team Performance
4. Ticketing and attendances
5. Finances

In order to be open and up front we list below the questions we will asking under each of the above discussion headings. We stress our request for direct dialogue with the owners.

1. Club and Owner aspirations

• What are the owners aspirations for the club?
• Have you advised the owners that the best thing they could do is put the club up for sale?
• Where do YOU think Blackburn Rovers ought to be?

2. Fan engagement

• Do you realise you are in real danger of going into a historic anniversary year against a backdrop of protests? And what are you doing to try and prevent this?

3. First team performance

• Ordinarily we wouldn’t want to discuss on pitch matters, however it is evident that off field happenings are impacting upon the team’s success.
• What was the hiring process for Valerien Ismael? Who had the final say?
• It is well publicised that several player contracts will be expiring in the summer. Are discussions underway currently, and who is responsible for negotiating new deals?
• The sale of key playing assets has put us in an enviable position in terms of P&S rules, however, this only gives us a finite window to reinvest in the squad and make a genuine push for promotion. Why didn’t this happen in the last 2 windows? What assurances can you give supporters the summer window will be any different?

4. Ticketing and attendances

• What is the rationale around season ticket pricing? Given the disappointing number of adult tickets sold last year, how do you feel increasing prices will impact this?
• Who is responsible for setting ticket prices, and is their only success measure based on revenue, or are numbers a consideration?

We also want to bring to your attention the following report on an excellent recent initiative at League 2 Bradford City.  If this can be done at Bradford it can be replicated at Ewood.  Initiatives such as this are key to building the longer term health and wealth of our Club.  Do you have the resources to support such an initiative linked to our 150th Anniversary this coming November?

5.  Finances

• Can you explain when Venky’s last remitted any money?
• Can you provide an update on plans to bring the training ground back under club ownership?’