Premier League dismiss calls for Rovers investigation (From This Is Lancashire)

Premier League dismiss calls for Rovers investigation

5:56pm Thursday 10th May 2012 in Sport

The Premier League have dismissed MP Jack Straw’s calls for an investigation into Venky’s takeover of Blackburn Rovers and say they are confident the club will remain financially sustainable despite relegation.

Straw, MP for Blackburn, has accused the Premier League of “a wilful neglect of its responsibilities” and called for an investigation into how the Indian poultry giants were persuaded to buy the club.

The Premier League say their ‘owners’ and directors’ test’ and financial rules work to ensure that clubs remain sustainable but cannot ensure “competency”.

Rovers confirmed that deputy chief executive Paul Hunt has left the club following the furore over a leaked letter.

The letter from Hunt to Venky’s was written in December and stated he wanted them to sack manager Steve Kean.

The owners, however, have stood by Kean.

Straw wrote in the Lancashire Telegraph: “At the heart of the Premier League’s wilful neglect of its responsibilities is its so-called ‘fit and proper person’ test (forerunner of the owners’ and directors’ test).

“The test is laughable and almost everyone in the business knows this. It allows no period of probation for new owners, no assessment of their managerial competence, no disclosure of the insidious role of agents.

But Premier League communications director Dan Johnson said: “The owners’ and directors’ test is an objective and legally sustainable mechanism, which goes above and beyond UK Company Law, to ascertain if any prospective owner or director of a Premier League club has been convicted of offences that should preclude them from that level of involvement.

“It is not, and cannot be, a test of competency in respect of decision making at a club.”