I wasn't really referring to the last year or two, but was going back to 2018-2021. I was told, by many on here, that our choice of path was absolutely the right one, completely sensible and sustainable and it would ensure that we would be in a strong position down the line, blessed with assets of value and in no trouble with FFP rules. Fast forward and that simply didn't happen. Most of the assets we had we lost for nothing, and I am also being asked to accept that selling off Brockhall to a different company was a necessary and proportionate measure to ensure we steered clear of trouble. I was also told back in 2018-19 that all these other clubs going out spending millions and paying big money were headed for an iceberg with FFP because it would catch up with them. Well it didn't, as the number of punishments handed out has shown. Nor have those clubs been forced into selling off land or facilities to comply or are claiming 'geopolitics' forcing budgets to be slashed. Of course you are right. They have all sold players as is reality of life in the Championship. We did it too with Armstrong but that doesn't appear to have achieved anything, as we didn't reinvest at the time and still sold Brockhall. I agree, hopefully moving forward with GB it will be different, but last time around it was supposed to be different and in the end it wasn't. I tend to believe that the reason the earlier mentioned clubs have avoided any issues is because they are all owned by local supporters, genuine well meaning businessmen who are determined to try and be successful for their clubs - Gibson, Coates, Lansdown. Whereas ours, well, I think it is fair to say are not.

I doubt that. They'll just find some other way to sink us like they always do. I remember after promotion from League One we were told that we weren't going to go daft and spend big money to try and bounce to the PL. We were going to be sensible and structured and invest correctly, in doing so avoiding FFP issues and building something that would enable us to be well placed medium term after all these other clubs had suffered through overspending and FFP trouble. Fast forward just 2-3 years and we've let a raft of said assets walk away for nothing, nobly claiming we had no alternative, and into the mix have had to sell off our training ground apparently to ensure compliance. Not many clubs have done that. I was told that the likes of Stoke, Bristol City, Middlesbrough, spending millions a year and huge wages, would get their comeuppance under FFP whilst we would be sat pretty with a solid base. As it turns out none of those clubs have faced sanctions, despite spending and losing a lot more than us, whilst we have effectively sanctioned ourselves, be that due to 'geopolitical issues' affecting the owners or due to imposing harsh cuts and restrictions allegedly to achieve FFP compliance. This is just more of the jam tomorrow talk. Expecting us to believe that a bit of pain over the next 2-3 years is going to lead to a big bright future where we cruise along and all these rival clubs get crippled with FFP issues. It won't happen. We will get to 2026 (assuming we survive in the Championship until then) and it will just be more of the same - claims we have to sell assets and make cuts to comply, rapidly changing situation with the owners in India, cashflow problems, profits taking a hit. They treat the club with neglect and contempt and decide budgets and 'strategy' on a whim. I firmly believe we now have the shadow man and Waggott doing what they think is best with whatever budget India decides to hand down each year. Broughton and JDT are mere pawns in that, brought in under the impression there was a plan and ambition here and now realising that these owners have neither, just make it up as they go along depending on how they feel each summer.

So a few snippets from what I've seen and heard (Not gone through the full interview yet): 1) The budget was slashed mid-transfer window with zero warning from India, torpedoing Broughton and JDTs plans. 2) Broughton tried to warn the owners that this would quite possibly lead to JDT becoming disillusioned and leaving the club, a travesty after an excellent first season, the owners don't seem to have taken that on board and don't care. 3) Despite claims to the contrary he has confirmed that there was an embargo on signings in place, which was so strict that it even prevented us signing Batth on a free/low cost short deal from Sunderland even though JDT had identified him as what was needed in defence. I ask again why this is better than being under an EFL imposed embargo for breaching FFP rules (where you can sign players within certain parameters). 4) 'Geopolitical issues' keeps being repeated by Broughton and the local media as the 'reason' for this chaos but none seem willing or able to actually spell out how geopolitics are affecting Rovers' transfer plans. A tax/financial investigation isn't geopolitical, unless the suggestion is that this is motivated by political reasons.

So in the absence of Waggott there was no owner, representative or board member at the meeting? In which case this does not qualify as a 'consultation meeting' with fans under league rules, which must be attended by at least one of the above.

Yeah. Strikes me that the people in India either aren't happy or confident in how money is being spent over here and they are deploying their trusted man to have a look at it. Depends what for though. At one end of the scale it might just be a case of 'appoint' him to the board to tick boxes, give a certain impression to the authorities or so he can 'oversee' future transactions more easily. At the other end of the scale they are moving into a new phase which requires a more 'hands on' approach from India to cut costs....

'Geopolitical Issues' claxon Fair play to Gregg, he does his bit and I believe his best in fronting up, dealing with the press and trying to provide clarity and reassurance. Can't be easy when working for absolute loons and liars. Once again I think this is exactly how they've designed it. Brought in a new face with a good grasp of the media to take the questions and stick whilst those in India and in the shadows carry out the next phase of their 'project' in hiding.

Yeah I don't think this milestone is anything to be particularly proud of. These days of course if you are a PL mainstay you play less league fixtures than a perennial Championship / League One club. Preston have played more league fixtures than us, but that's only because they've never been in the PL so nothing really to shout about. It doesn't mean much.

Waggott demonstrating his imagination and ambitions for the club there. New stand? Will look into it Sensible proposals to try and increase catchment area and numbers turning up? Will look into it Refurbishment of Ewood / pitch? Will look into it Any degree of ambition, forward planning, growth, improvement met with vague future considerations and possibles, 'Will look into it' Meanwhile he is very effective at doing things the other way - cutting, shutting, downscaling, reducing. He has no problem at all with finding ways to do that. Those schemes don't need 'looking into' they just happen. Making us one of the few clubs around not to bother with a programme. One of the few clubs around to have zero presence outside of our stadium e.g. in the town centre or across our catchment area. One of the few clubs to not bother arranging supporters coaches. One of the only clubs to stick bin liners over seats to make lettering rather than pay for some new white seats. Absolutely tinpot. Cheers Venkys and Waggott. What isn't tinpot is his salary.

Interesting but probably not good news despite how they are trying to spin it. Quite why they feel the need to suddenly bring in their head of finance to the club suggests something isn't right or they aren't happy with things. Clearly this is linked to the 'geopolitical issues' they have been referring to this summer.

Or hopefully it is binned and replaced with proper lettering with white seats. The current bin liners over the seats routine just another cheap Waggott stunt that reflects poorly on our club IMO. I'm not aware of any other club in the leagues or even non-league that decides to stick white bin liners over its seats for lettering. Even Accy Stanley have white seats spelling 'Stanley' in their stands.

'Nasty Indian government introducing punitive new tax laws that makes life much harder for poor old Venkys to pour their cash into Rovers' is a far more appealing and sellable line than 'Indian authorities seize Venky assets and investigate them for financial misconduct which means they can't / won't put as much into Rovers' Just like 'Nasty EFL FFP rules make it much harder for poor Venkys to pour their cash into Rovers' is a far more appealing and sellable line then 'Venky's don't want to put as much in this year so have cut the budget' If you are billionaires and like the idea of people thinking you are god's gift, unquestionable and fautless and enjoy a legion of sycophants telling you what you want to hear it makes perfect sense why those at Ewood to run a certain narrative. Unfortunately this is regurgitated almost verbatim by the local media and almost immediately a claim becomes fact.

Just when you think the club couldn't act in a more tinpot amateurish manner our CEO expertly manages to find a way to do just that. Cutback Steve really showing his ambitions here. Of course he's no interest in progressing in the cup or getting more people into Ewood - the lamentable 'attempts' to promote the game will ensure that - but focusing purely on finding a way to try and save a few quid wherever he can. As others have correctly pointed out, Cardiff will bring about 300 and will be scattered across the DE lower tier. If he's that bothered about saving the costs of opening a big stand he should think about sticking them in the corner of the JW stand but I'm pretty sure any saving he makes shutting the BBE will be wiped out by the costs of opening the DE and putting a few hundred more off going who don't want to go in the JW stand. The double whammy will come if we (surprisingly) do manage to get to about 7000-8000 advance sales. That will cause them problems because they'll have to consider opening the BBE then to deal with any walk-on overspill. This will then annoy the BBE regulars who have been forced into buying in the JW stand. Fingers crossed for Steve's sake we just get the 5000 and then he can toast a job well done. The day he fecks off from this club can't come soon enough. He's an embarrassment and he makes our club one too.

It really is hilarious and so predictable. People have known for weeks that something probably quite serious and even sinister is occurring. The Club have done absolutely nothing to dampen that speculation instead providing vague 'geopolitical issues' talk but nothing more in interviews with Waggott and Broughton. Only through supporter(s) doing some online reading via a foreign news outlet does more light get shed on what is happening. Of course nothing comes from the Club or the local media who are supposed to be professionals at this sort of thing. Yet within 24 hours of it appearing on here BBC Lancashire have got in touch with the Club about it and the Club have obviously been sufficiently concerned by it to release an anonymous, hasty, poorly worded and slapdash 'statement' that tells us very little. Once again our 'straight talking' CEO goes missing when the serious stuff starts. Happy to brag about paying the bills on time and his new bus in a pre-scripted in house interview but hides when actual serious and potentially club defining news about the ownership appears. And this the Club that claims to value communication and honesty with its supporters. That's easy when you're talking about what type of pies to stock and whether to have a collar on next season's home shirt. The actual stuff that matters they run for the hills and hide. Very similar turn of events to the training ground scheme. Obvious things have been happening behind the scenes for weeks / months and it takes fans doing the work for the local media to catch on and of course this then puts the club on panic mode.

Because the club has previously got caught out instructing the Telegraph to redact certain elements of stories to make life easier for Rovers. I was jesting because i suspect any story by the Telegraph would have to be approved and vetted by Rovers before it went public. They are in their back pockets.

If every outgoing owner sought to recover their losses or 'debt' then no football club would ever change hands, as it would always be too expensive. If you look at what the Allam's wrote off to get rid of Hull, what Fayed wrote off to get rid of Fulham, Abramovich at Chelsea. Those are Venkys' losses over 10 years and their tab to pick up. Why should the club or new owners have to pay them back for losses from 8,9,10 years ago?

It depends on the scale of it. Why do it if only 'minor'. Usually these things are done due to the vast amounts of money at stake. Not that this matters. Fundamentally whether it is £1 million or £100 million if illegal activity e.g. fraud or money laundering has been taking place it is a crime. If that is found to be the case I don't see how anyone can accept the club being funded in such a way. It was legal proceedings that brought down the Oystons at Blackpool and I've always expected this is the only way of getting this lot out of Rovers. Fingers crossed.

Please delete

Whatever the outcome of all this, which we are powerless to control, surely we all agree that if something dodgy or illegal has been going on with the funding of the club then that needs to be the end of Venkys? I hope nobody is suggesting that we should desire their continued presence / input if illegal activities have been taking place?

So much for slippery Steve being 'honest' and up front about the issue like many were rushing to credit him for the other week. Quite happy to let people believe the nonsense that the Indian government had changed their tax laws overnight and unsurprisingly once again a bit of online digging and third party new outlets reveal the truth, not our CEO only this evening they claimed: "One of our key strategic aims and priorities is to have an open dialogue and clear communication with our supporters surrounding key subjects" Whilst MSN and co have revealed more about these owners than Waggott has in 5 years

With Broughton here I am relatively confident that he could find us another decent option from overseas, although anyone would struggle to surpass JDT's results and popularity to date. Broughton seems to have his head screwed on and knows what he is looking for and I think would have a plan if JDT walked. If Broughton was to leave or was bypassed on the managerial search then god help us, because with Waggott and Pasha in control it will be the most dismal, uninspiring, cheap, easy option you can possibly think of.

Just think though, if it wasn't for Venkys we'd end up in a terrible state like....um.....Bolton, Blackpool, Derby

EFL Regulation 128.1: "Clubs shall hold at least two meetings / fans forums per season to which its supporters (or representatives) are to be invited in order to discuss significant issues relating to the Club. The framework for these meetings shall be documented in the Club's customer charter , but are subject to the following minimum criteria: 128.1.1: Club's must be represented by the Club's majority owner, Board director(s) or other senior executive(s) 128.1.2: Where meetings are not open to all supporters wishing to attend, the supporter representatives must be elected, selected or invited in line with basic democratic principles 128.1.3: Individuals cannot be excluded by the Club without good reason Now when supporter consultation meetings were first made mandatory by the League they ran in addition to the Fans Forum meetings. The idea was that the Fans Forum meetings would continue on their 2-3 monthly cycles and cover the usual business and then these bigger meetings would take place once or twice a year to cover more important and signficant issues. Unsurprisingly, as with shareholder meetings, Waggott has seized advantage of Covid as an excuse to stop these and is now getting away with just having the small forum meetings every few months to talk about predominantly minor issues such as ticketing, catering and merchandise. I'd also suggest that with the exception of Waggott the other people present at Fans Forum meetings are not of sufficient seniority to comply with these requirements. In times gone by they have also tried to blag it by inviting the manager and Bob Coar, again neither of which meet the criteria above. I will be writing to Waggott to request an explanation as to why the Club has decided to cease holding shareholder meetings and standalone supporter consultation meetings.

I think that ever since the shadow man started to take a more active role in the running of the club there has been a precarious balance of power at the club. A balance of power that at present is in the shadow man's favour and has been for the last few years. Cast our minds back to Gary Bowyer's tenure. Up until the summer of 2015 things had been pretty hunky dory with him. He'd done pretty well, rebuilt the squad, had some reasonable backing in doing that, settled things down and had developed some serious assets. Whilst he failed to get us into the top six we weren't far away. Summer of 2015 things start to change. Bowyer doesn't get his annual India trip, doesn't get any money to spend, has to resort to dross like Delfouneso and Koita on free transfers and meanwhile they sell off Cairney and Gestede. It was quite clear then the direction things were going - no cash, free transfers, more outgoings than incomings. It was right around this time that the shadow man first became actively involved on the ground at Ewood. Once Bowyer's line to India was severed that summer the path was clear for his removal. The Lambert stunt was Shadow man in action. The biggest compliment I can give him is that he appears to understand the need to have some experience and track record behind the scenes on the football side. Once Bowyer was out of the way it was structured so that Lambert and then Coyle did not have direct access to India. They had to go through shadow man. Unsurprisingly neither of those managers received any serious financial backing, neither of them lasted long, both had to oversee large player sales and disappearing profits (Rhodes, Duffy, Hanley). Then Mowbray comes along and in his first summer after relegation he goes out to India, coming back with a new contract, new job title and some serious financial backing. I suspect after the calamity of that season and costly relegation the shadow man was held at least partly responsible cut out for a while. Mowbray being allowed to keep all his players after relegation to League One, being allowed to sign big hitters like Dack and Armstrong. Personally I think at this point the balance of power shifted away from the shadow man and back to the dugout. We had a return to the Kean and Bowyer days with the manager liked by those in India, with a direct line to India and with authority to spend directly from India. Shadow man was pushed to one side. This continued fairly steadily for a few years with Mowbray allowed to assemble a big, at times bloated, and expensive squad, allowed to spend millions on the likes of Armstrong, Gallagher, Brereton. Allowed to hand out big contracts to his mates as 'reward' for promotion. Occasional inconsistencies such as the odd signings of Sam Hart and Jacob Davenport suggested that there was someone else with an input into transfers. Then after a few years, be that due to covid, or due to those in India getting fed up at the lack of return, the balance of power shifts again. Mowbray can't have his India visits, his transfer funds dry up. Contracts are neglected. Armstrong is sold. Mowbray doesn't get the cash. He's reliant on loans. Mowbray becomes visibly fed up with things and is practically begging to be sacked. So now shadow man is back in control. Mowbray is out of the way and he needs a new structure in place. One that will keep things ticking over on the 'strategy' he wants / is instructed to oversee which is little to no cash, a small portion of funds generated reinvested, reduction to the wage bill and age of the squad. No ambition. This is where Broughton and JDT come in. They are supposed to do the job without a direct line to India, needing to go through the shadow man for everything just as slippery Steve does upstairs. I found it very interesting that Broughton announced at the start of the summer that he and JDT wanted or planned to go to India to meet the owners. I was very hopeful about this, and when it didn't happen my expectations for the summer fell through the floor. I have no doubt they wanted to go to India, realising that their chances of any sort of reasonable budget this summer depended on it, realising that this is the way to get backing at this club. For some reason that trip didn't happen. Maybe India wouldn't agree to it, or maybe someone intervened to prevent it, knowing that he would be sidelined if it happened. I do find it funny that the repugnant EFL make such a song and dance about communication and transparency, make rules that clubs have to have bi-annual supporter consultation meetings where owners or their reps are supposed to speak to fans groups, yet at Rovers no such meeting has occurred in over 4 years and the owners and their rep have never spoken.

It takes some doing to miss out on the top 6 on GD and the FA Cup semi by a hair's breadth and then a couple of months later treating a 3-0 defeat at newly promoted Plymouth as a 'learning curve'. Life in the Venky lane eh.

All these clubs seeing a surge in numbers and good old Rovers are (at best) standing still. And to make it even worse nobody from the owners down gives a damn.