Blackburn start their Championship campaign with Steve Kean at the helm

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At the start of the new championship season Blackburn Rovers will have a manager in the shape of Steve Kean. Shebby Singh, the club’s new global advisor, announced that an agreement has been made with Kean.

Rovers were relegated in May, following 11 years in the Premiership. Supporters have been putting increasing pressure on club owners Venky’s and Keane himself since Sam Allardyce was replaced in December 2010 be the Scot. The 44-year-old flew to India at the end of last season for talks with Venky’s, and it appears he will be trying to lead Blackburn back to Premiership football in the first year.

Mr Singh who is a former Malaysian international, and has been working as a football pundit recently in Asia, was appointed by Blackburn Rovers Football Club at the start of the week.

Although he reportedly called for Kean to be sacked in a Singapore paper (New Paper), he now appears to support the Scot. In the newspaper column he said that Steve Keane was not the man to lead the club back to the Premiership. He has stated that when the article was written, he was looking at him critically as a sports pundit, not as a work colleague.

Mr Sing goes on to explain that they need to talk about certain aspects for an extremely long time. He feels that there were a lot of areas which weren’t looked into in the last season. In particular He mentioned tactically naïve, lightweight teams, players past their prime, team members who were played out of position and unhappy players.

He said they weren’t going to wallow in self-pity, but quickly move on. Mr Singh agrees he has been critical and in his new role as global adviser his views need to be more constructive.

 

More European football fans than expected make the trip the Euro 2012

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Many thousands of fans from across Europe have travelled to the European Championships. Fans from crisis-hit countries, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain have left behind the huge spending cuts, chronic unemployment and widespread disenchantment of their home countries for a few weeks.

Fans are putting their trust in their teams, where they can no longer put it in their banks are politicians. A local government worker from Spain made the journey to Poland to support his country’s team, saying he just had to be there.

The Spanish team, who won four years ago, is amongst the favourites to win the European title. Julio travelled with a budget airline and is staying for five days on a campsite in Gdansk, northern Poland. Julio, from Caceres, like most fans, is pleased that the cost of living is cheaper in the Ukraine and Poland.

In 2007 UEFA voted for the Eastern European countries, who are neighbours, to jointly host the four-yearly tournament. The finals four years ago were held in Austria and Switzerland, which are very expensive, and the 2010 World Cup took place in South Africa, very expensive for Europeans to travel to.

The official areas where the supporters can follow the matches on giant screens are called fan zones. A beer in one of these fan zones will cost about half as much as it would have in a fan zone in Austria at the 2008 tournament.

Spain’s economic situation is absolutely dire, with the resources of the ordinary working Spaniard steadily dwindling. Unemployment is very high and unfortunately so is the cost of living. Many have made huge sacrifices to be able to attend the matches, and save long and hard. For many it is national pride that they are supporting.

 

Ex manager Walter Smith seeks to buy Rangers

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A new bid to buy Rangers has been announced by former manager of the side, Walter Smith. The offer is thought to be approximately £6m and Mr Smith will put part of the money in alongside other Scottish businessmen, to include Douglas Park and Jim McColl. Mr Smith has asked the previous leading bidder, Charles Green, to stand aside. Mr Green and his consortium were about to complete their £5.5m purchase.

Mr Smith has confirmed in a statement that he is leading a bid for the club, saying that he and his partners want the club to be in the capable hands of Rangers people, to help stabalise the club. He continued by saying that he had asked Mr Green to step aside so the deal could proceed, saying that the new deal would be in the best interests of the clubs employees, the fans, the creditors and all other stakeholders of Rangers F.C.

This development came on the day the CVA (company voluntary arrangement) was rejected. This failed after Revenue and Customs told the club’s administrators that it would not vote in favour of the proposal. The club required 75% backing to move it out of administration. Rangers Football Club now moves towards liquidation and Mr Green will soon acquire the business and assets of Rangers Fc on a newco basis. On Thursday the administrators confirmed an ‘imminent’ newco deal, following the rejection of the CVA.

Mr Smith, who was at the Ibrox helm for two successful spells, said that the motivation behind the 11th hour bid was simply to save the club, and not because anyone in the group wanted to own Rangers Football Club. The consortium hope to make the club self-sufficient, and stress that long term sustainability is essential.

Rangers demotion could lead to Sky pulling out of SPL TV deal

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Sky is ready to pull out of the £110million deal to show SPL games should Rangers plunge to Division Three, causing terror and stress in the boardrooms. However, it may not be such a bad thing. Matches were traditionally played from 3pm on a Saturday but now times differ according to TV air time, putting many supporters off.

Club chairmen are dreading the thought of the SPL without the funding that Sky gives. Stephen Thompson, of Dundee United, said that they day the club has to go without satellite cash could be described as Armageddon; Michael Johnston from Kilmarnock is not too pleased about the idea either.

If the game went back to the old days, kicking off at 3 o’clock on Saturday afternoon, the clubs would be taking a huge gamble. However the management teams do not want to ignore what the supporters want. They understand that a club needs supporters to survive, however they also need large injections of cash flow, which is one thing that Sky TV coverage regularly brings.

They have a difficult decision ahead of them on how to find the balance. Generally the two main revenue streams are TV money and sales of season tickets, but smaller clubs need the TV money to remain in business.

A huge 30% of the SPL income received by Dundee United this season came from television contracts. With clubs such as Kilmarnock in considerable debt it is important to have a regular income, which is promised with the Sky deal. Kilmarnock FC have tried a number of ways to pull more crowds in, however they remain unconvinced that a return to the traditional kick off times would help bring punters in. He described the idea as “a step into the unknown”.

WAG musical is well received on opening in the West End

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The musical WAG has opened in the West End and has been well received. Jessica Lawlor, a real life WAG who plays mega-bitch Victoria, revealed that boyfriend Stephen Ireland was the more nervous of the two. Jessica said that it was a “constant battle” for her to get the Premier League star to relax although she was pleased for the support he had given her.

Jessica, 26 performed during the show’s premiere at the north-east London venue of Ye Olde Rose and Crown. The pub theatre was a grand venue as the blond bombshell gave a standout singing display and even starred in a catfight with Pippa Fulton. An appreciative crowd of over 150 people delighted in the raunchy comedy and ballads.

Jessica’s real life WAG friends include 26-year old Chantelle Tagoe, Manchester City Emile Heskey’s fiancée and Carla Kompany, wife of captain Vincent Kompany; all of whom have seen a dress rehearsal and boyfriend Stephen plans to see the show in a few days after his return from Los Angeles.

In the show, Jessica’s co-stars include Pippa Fulton, girlfriend of Clayton Donaldson the Brentford striker and former Eastenders star Belinda Owusu. Pippa, a former star of the Fame Academy says the musical plays on the well known stereotypes of football and people seem to love it.

Amongst a celebrity packed audience was 63-year old Paul Gambaccini, the veteran TV presenter and DJ who suggested the show had a bright future and was “very impressed” with the performances.