Blackburn Rovers delay tour to India

Rovers owners Venkatesh Rao and Balaji Rao have postponed the club’s trip to their homeland [GALLO/GETTY]

Blackburn Rovers have postponed their pre-season visit to India following last week’s bomb blasts in Mumbai, the Indian-owned English Premier League club said on Tuesday.

Three near-simultaneous bomb blasts during the evening rush hour last Wednesday killed 18 people and injured 133 others in India’s financial capital.

Blackburn, who are owned by the Indian Venky’s company, said in a statement: “The board and the owners have agreed to reschedule until such time as further risk assessments and appraisals have been undertaken.”

The trip, which would make Blackburn the first English Premier League side to tour India, is now expected to take place at a later date, the club added on their website.

“Safety is always our top priority and after detailed discussions with our security and legal advisors we have been left with no option other than to postpone,” the statement said.

“While everyone is obviously disappointed, we all accept the circumstances and the reasoning. We are now looking forward to the trip in India in a few weeks time.”

Not so Super

The Turkish Super Cup match between league champions Fenerbahce and cup winners Besiktas has been postponed due to a court investigation into match-fixing allegations which have hit some of the country’s major clubs, Turkey’s football federation said on Tuesday.

Federation chairman Mehmet Ali Aydinlar said it was expecting to start receiving prosecutors’ documents regarding the probe on Wednesday and the federation would then reach a decision on when the new season will start.

A Turkish court has already jailed pending trial 31 people, including the chairman of champions Fenerbahce and the coach and deputy chairman of Besiktas on charges of match-fixing which have plunged preparations for the new season into chaos.

“The July 31 Super Cup match between Fenerbahce and Besiktas has been postponed,” Aydinlar told reporters after a meeting of federation executives. He did not say when the match will be played.

The league season was originally scheduled to begin on August 5 but a postponement is one of the options open to the federation as it weighs up its response to the match-fixing allegations.

Fenerbahce, one of the club’s at the centre of the police investigation, are set to play in the lucrative Champions League along with runners-up Trabzonspor.

However, the federation has the authority to ban clubs from competitions or relegate them.