Blackburn Rovers respond after the Rovers Trust issues a lengthy statement at the ‘ongoing shambles at our club’, as they put it.
The club are to appeal against an EFL decision not to register one loan signing and one permanent signing before Tuesday’s transfer deadline due to late submission of paperwork.
Rovers said “complex” negotiations and “events beyond our control” led to the documents being submitted late for the first of the two rejected deals.
ROVERS TRUST STATEMENT:
For over a decade, the Blackburn Rovers Supporters Trust has been imploring the owners and those they have charged with running the club to engage with the wider supporter base and to listen to our concerns over the way the club operates.
The last 48 hours have once again demonstrated a distinct lack of care and attention from those entrusted with the running of the club, and by extension, the owners.
The debacle surrounding the failed deadline day signings is another example of incompetence and an inability to perform the basic duties necessary to provide a functioning football club.
The fans, without whom the club would serve no purpose, have been left in limbo, let down and treated as an irrelevance.
We deserve better than farcical situations like this.
Having witnessed a poor second half to last season, there was something of a renewed sense of optimism surrounding the summer appointments at the club, now the remainder of our season appears to have been sabotaged by carelessness.
AGAIN, we implore the club to engage with us.
Swathes of empty seats, closed stands, record low gates since the Ewood redevelopment, should all be an indicator of current supporter feeling.
We have attempted to convey the mood of the fans and offered ideas, initiatives, and assistance to help address this.
However, embarrassing situations like this will only serve to turn apathy into anger.
The fans are the beating heart of any club – WE ARE THE ROVERS — but after over a decade of neglect and disappointment, many of us have never felt so detached from the club.
Change is long overdue. We expect the individual(s) responsible for this latest fiasco to be held accountable.
On the back of the excellent fan-led review of football governance and the imminent Government White Paper, The Rovers Supporters Trust calls on the club to form a strategic alliance with a wide range of elected supporters in the form of a shadow board, with the Blackburn Rovers Supporters Trust at the heart of it to ensure the long-term future of the club.
The Blackburn Rovers Supporters Trust Board
Rovers trust statement on the ongoing shambles at our football club pic.twitter.com/7CpxTqnrb7
— Rovers Trust (@RoversTrust) February 2, 2023
CLUB STATEMENT:
The club would like to update our supporters on the situation concerning trying to bring in two players prior to the 11pm transfer deadline on Tuesday January 31st.
One of the deals was a very ambitious target and it was only confirmed that he was able to join us late Tuesday afternoon.
Due to the complex nature of the various agreements to be included within the overall registration, legal advisors were brought in to assist in part of the process.
Despite the club’s best endeavours to complete all the required elements of this loan transfer, due to events we believe to be outside of our control, the deadline for submission was late and despite the club stating the mitigating reasons for the delayed submission, our application has today been rejected by the EFL.
Our application for the second deal – for the permanent transfer of a promising young player – was also delayed due to unsigned paperwork and technical issues encountered by the club at the point of submission.
Once again the EFL has not accepted these issues were an impediment to the paperwork being lodged on time and has also rejected this application.
The club will now appeal the EFL decision to reject both applications and will submit documents ahead of the Tuesday February 7th deadline.
Club Statement: The club would like to update our supporters on the situation concerning trying to bring in two players prior to the 11pm transfer deadline on Tuesday January 31st.
👉 Read the full statement: https://t.co/an2U3Hflbg#Rovers 🔵⚪
— Blackburn Rovers (@Rovers) February 2, 2023
Gregg Broughton statement (as per LancsLive)
Give us an idea of deadline day events
“If I go right back to the beginning of the process, we started going into the winter window with two main targets. We wanted to bring in either a striker or, if not a striker, then a player who had an x-factor who could affect and help us with a short term performance gain. Or secondly a player who had long-term potential with the club, which either could be a player coming out of contract or a young player so those were the aims.
“We focussed initilaly on the strikers, I think it is on public record that we had an agreement in place with Brighton for Denis Undav and just before it was done the player decided to stay in house. We then moved on to Kone at L’Orient. Again the deal was done and all the personal terms were agreed but because of other transfer business at the club they weren’t able to let the player go.
“At the same time, you can never go for just one target at a time. There are lots of pieces moving and plenty of names who didn’t make it into the public domain. All of the time the recruitment team are updating and running players past Jon.
“We then get to deadline day, we had managed to bring Sorba Thomas in which was almost a straight replacement for George Hirst – not in the same position but a loan. We are delighted to have Sorba in the building for the reasons explained when he came in.
“Going into transfer deadline day we had a couple of live targets, we knew that Lewis (OB) would become available. We had been speaking to Nottingham Forest and his agent for probably six weeks coming into it. The message was consistent: Lewis can come out but not until we have rbought somebody in. We knew that was gaining momentum in the 72 hours before (deadline day) and we finally got the call at 10am on transfer deadline day that Lewis would become available. We weren’t able to speak to him straight away because he was in training with Nottingham Forest and by the time he had finished, spoke to his agent and asked for an hour to reflect, we got the message about 1.30/2pm that he would like to come to Blackburn. We finally got the sign off from Nottingham Forest a little bit after that.
“At the same time we are dealing with a striker who we were still waiting on the club to make a decision on so those two things are live. And then finally Ethan Brierley from Rochdale, a player we have tracked for some time but understood was going to Sheffield United, but because of the embargo in place wasn’t able to so we decided to move quickly to try and secure Ethan. Those were the various bits.
“After that we just followed the process the club has always followed. I went to the medicals which were in Manchester just because we knew time was going to be tight and I wanted to be there to make sure everyone was okay with the players. Lewis had only just been told by Nottingham Forest so we wanted to make sure he was okay and had had some food and all the stuff you need to do. Ethan left Manchester about 8.30pm and I left about 9.20pm with Lewis and his representatives to come back and get the paperwork done.”
What went wrong?
“There is definitely some internal factors and we must not gloss over that but there were some external factors. We are in the middle of an appeal process now. I am not a lawyer and we have the very best people working on our case and I hope you can understand why we can’t go into those external factors now. They are not spurious or ridiculous otherwise we wouldn’t be wasting time and energy on an appeal. There is something genuine on that but equally we and I are not trying to shirk responsibilty. I am responsible for all football matters at the club and transfers and recruitment is one of the areas I look after. And we failed to get Lewis across the line so I take responsibility for that.”
The club statement mentioned mitigating factors, what were they?
“I can’t go through those today, I am sure they will become public and if not I am happy to come back but I think it would weaken our appeal process if I was to go through them publicly today.”
How confident are you that the appeal will be successful?
“To be honest, not very. not because I don’t think we have really good reasons because I think we do but my understanding is nobody has ever won an appeal against a late submission to the Football League so we are going to have set a record to do it this time around.”
Where does the responsibility lay for submitting the documentation?
“Submitting the documentation is just part of the process but overall the buck stops with me. We mustn’t blame the owners, the recruitment team or the admin and legal team at the club. The buck stops with me.”
How do the players involved feel?
“Both players are devastated. We have been in constant contact with them and their representatives. Yesterday (Wednesday) when we got the notification from the Football League that we hadn’t been successful we spoke straight away with Lewis’ representatives and Nottingham Forest because at that stage they hadn’t handed their 25 man squad in and we said there is an option to do so but they have chosen not to put Lewis into that squad. The moment that decision was made it cemented for us that the appeal was there and we had the support of the player and his agent to do so. With Rochdale, it was a little bit different because it was a permanent transfer and we have agreed that will go through regardless of the appeal but it will be postponed to the summer. It can be done in advance of that.”
Do both players still want to come?
Yes they do, 100 per cent.
How does this reflect on the club?
“Obviously we haven’t managed to bring in the players we targeted. We have come out of the window as went into it, neutral. We have lost one loan and gained one loan. In terms of the process itself we have missed out on what we wanted to do and there are internal reasons for that as well as external. I think we have to do a full process now to find out what those are but we can’t dwell in the past either. We have to move forward otherwise we are going to be forever looking backwards and not forwards. There is definitely things we can learn from it.
“We owe an apology to our supporters for how it happened, how it was communicated and how it continues to be communicated and that is why I am here talking to you. We certainly owe apologies to both players who were here doing interviews just the other night. We owe our apologies to the recruitment team who have done an enormous amount of work in the build up to this. And to Jon Dahl because we haven’t managed to secure a player that we think could have given him an edge going into the last 18 games of the season.”
How does Jon feel?
“He is disappointed. We are all gutted, he has phoned Lewis and is really really disappointed. We landed the player, it was agreed and we had done the hard bit. This should have been the easy bit and that is why we are furious. We had done six weeks of hard work but now is not the time for pointing fingers or apportioning blame. i take responsibility because I am in charge of recruitment at the club.”
What is your message to the fans?
“I apologise to them and we haven’t managed to bring the player in. We haven’t managed to communicate well enough since then or during then exactly what has happened. All I can assure them is that the whole process, and the process this year was no different to how the club has always done it for the past 10 years, but ultimately it has shown that the process hasn’t been good enough. We have to be better than that going forward and this is an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to improve and be better in the future.”
📺 #Rovers Director of Football Gregg Broughton talks to RoversTV about the January transfer window.#Rovers 🔵⚪ pic.twitter.com/BxVRrozPAS
— Blackburn Rovers (@Rovers) February 3, 2023
This is what fans are saying with Blackburn choosing to respond after Rovers Trust issues a statement at the ‘ongoing shambles at our football club’…
@ZDBannan97: Fair play for showing face and accepting responsibility, something needs to change tho piss poor not being able to sort transfers as a pro football club 👍🏻
@DaveBrfc1875: Admire he’s honesty and apology. But it just is absolute diabolical. Fuck Steve waggott aswell.
@BrittainSeason: The difference of reactions in rovers Twitter and rovers insta always amazes me. Think yes there are some donuts on here but insta comments always seem way more full of stupidity than Twitter and way more dumb
@chrishutchy7: I honestly think we are in good hands with this fella and JDT. Mistakes have been made and he’s held his hands up. Get behind the team and support our club. Pointless dwelling on it for the rest of the season. COYB 🔵⚪️
@S_T_A_N_L_E_Y: Honest man, nobody happy about missing out on a player who would’ve definitely given us a few extra points come the end of the season but transparency is all we can ask for. Surely this will only further the support JDT will receive regarding recruitment come the summer.
@jrparker89: Might get some stick but I think this is a good interview. Awful that it’s happened and they deserve the stick they’re given, but he’s at least taken responsibility for it. Hopefully he can redeem himself with the appeal or free agent market
@1994Adam: Obviously a terrible situation but fair to the man.. fronted up to the cameras admitted that fault lies with him, none of the bullocks passing the buck on. Hopefully we win the appeal and get the player
@Ryan1151: We’ve always criticized the club for its engagement and lack of. But fair play he is taking responsibility. That doesn’t change the fact it’s an absolute shambles however. This has been the final straw for some people, attendances will continue to drop.
@Muddboy27: Clearly something went badly wrong, but fair play to him for fronting up and taking responsibility. I personally don’t think the O’Brien transfer was a game-changer anyhow so not a huge amount of harm done. But we DO need to learn from whatever mistakes were made.
@TwooterHead: Well spoken, however, it has all been a disaster and he has confirmed that the players are devastated, JDT is disappointed and he has failed massively. I would encourage the hierarchies in the club to review some roles and make changes accordingly.
@GiallorossiBlue: Fair play to Gregg for coming out and being extremely honest about it all. He comes across as a class act. I genuinely don’t think I’ve felt this gutted since our relegation from the Premier League. O’Brien is a difference maker, I hope our appeal is successful but it won’t be.
@Leap_year_man: Admire the honesty taking responsibility, all round it’s an awful situation but still have confidence this is the right man to lead the club as DOF. Let’s pray for a miracle & if not get behind the lads & JDT, I wonder who the striker was that Gregg mentioned on deadline day?
@Chris_Alfred: Thanks for speaking publicly about it and taking responsibility. A rarity in today’s world. There will be other transfer windows and other potential players. Onwards and upwards and time for us all to get behind the team #Rovers
@huffy58: #Rovers the fact that no club has ever won an appeal against the #EFL tells you everything you need to know about an out of date, unprofessional, and ridiculous outfit . That in a nutshell is the EFL.
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