Long headline I know, but you will just have to bear with me on that. I was just so frustrated when I read the now famous four page spread in the Economic Times of India and there was so much I wanted to say, but it was very hard to cook down to a few words...
Aaaaany who - this post won't have much to do with football, but will mostly be about some of Venky's financial numbers.
Now, Venky's have been hailed as these brilliant business people (and I'm not saying they aren't), but let's just look at the very few numbers below.
| Some of the Venky's empire financial numbers |
Their empire embraces 28 companies, which in 2011 had a combined turnover of some £1 billion, zero debt and growth forecast of 15% annually for the next years to come. Now that is all well and good, especially the debt part is very impressive, but keeping in mind that the Indian economy is bursting forward, it's only an average performance at best.
In theory, their 28 companies are averaging a turnover of around £36 million, resulting in an average profit of less than £4 million. It sort of helps painting the picture, of a hardly impressive record, considering India's current financial trend (see BRIC Countries - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC).
If you then take a look at the four graphs concerning Blackburn Rovers, it all looks very positive with three out of four figures going up. However four out of four are moving in the wrong direction. The picture just gets worse and worse by every word.
In one calendar year, debt has risen from £21 mill to £26.3 (almost 25%), wage expenses have risen from £47.4 mill to £49.9 mill (around 5%) and a fall in ticket sales from £6.1 mill to £5.5 mill (just over 5%). These three figures could well be "sold" to someone with no interest in Blackburn Rovers, considering the economic climate that we find ourselves in. However the last figures are very hard to explain (creative accounting would be a good shout) and would put a frown on the face of anyone, with or without interest in Rovers - in a year with no major transfers, except the sale of Phil "Superman" Jones (£16.5 mill + add on), the Pre-tax Loss rose from £1.9 mill to £18.6 mill (just shy of an astonishing 1,000%)!
The British media (let's just say the Sky is the limit here) can call us Rovers Supporters what ever they damn well please, but we know the facts! Yes we might have targeted the wrong man at first, although seven wins in 38 isn't exactly impressive, but we are well within our right to protest against owners like Venky's - compare them to a country's government, like in Greece where there have been riots because of derailed finances, and you get the point pretty quickly.
Totally justifiable comparison by the way...
And just a thank you to Wen Y Hu at http://www.brfcs.co.uk/ for mentioning my blog in their latest podcast. Always good to get a mention ;)
