The English Premier League’s Black-burn Rovers football club confirmed on Tuesday that it is in advanced negotiations concerning its sale to the Pune-based Venkatesh-wara Hatcheries Group, an Indian poultry giant.
The sale of the Lancashire club will to be completed in November. “A series of meetings with the Premier League, have followed an extensive due diligence process. Both parties are hopeful that the transaction will be completed in Nove-mber,” Blackburn Rovers chairman John Williams said.
The Venkateshwara Group will be the first Indian firm to acquire a Premier League club. The Blackburn Rovers was established in 1875 and was a founder member of both the Football League and the Premier League. The Rovers issued a statement from Venkateshwara Group chairperson Anuradha J. Desai.
“We expect to be the first Indian company to acquire a Premier League team and we are particularly delighted that the team is Blackburn Rovers, with whom we believe we have many shared values and ambitions,” Ms Desai said. Venkateshwara Group senior directors B. Venka-tesh Rao and B. Balaji Rao, younger brothers of Ms Desai, are in London for the negotiations but neither are talking to the media.
About one-fourth of the population of Blackburn, which has the highest proportion of Muslims in the UK outside London, are of Indian or Pakistani descent and a significant number of Kashmiris, mostly from PoK, live in the area.