Ex-England star Shearer slams Venky's for hanging Blackburn coach Kean out to dry

London, May 9 (ANI): Former England football star Allan Shearer has strongly criticized Venkys, the Indian owners of Blackburn Rovers FC, for letting team manager Steve Kean down by blaming him for the club's relegation while earning millions of pounds at the same time.

In an article for The Sun, Shearer said he viewed the scene unfolding at Ewood Park on Monday night with both sadness and anger.

"Sadness at the sight of my former club slipping out of the Premier League for the first time in 11 years. Anger at the way it has been allowed to happen," Shearer writes in The Sun.

He further writes: "A football club can overcome all sorts of hurdles when it pulls together. It can be a remarkable force when owners, the manager, players and fans are all heading in the same direction. But this was a club completely divided, one imploding live on television."

Shearer says that was painful for him to watch Coach Kean being hauled down the tunnel at the final whistle for his own safety, as some fans spilled angrily on to the pitch.

The players, with just the odd exception, did not feel comfortable enough to stay out there.

"The awful stewardship of Venky's has finally delivered its sorry conclusion. Their abject lesson in how not to run a football club should be documented and sent out as a warning to all other teams," he says.

He said that Kean was hung out to dry, taking all the flak, while Venkys sat in India counting their millions.

This was a club which had won the Premier League title in 1995, a club that, while relegated in 1999, came back in 2001 and stayed in the top flight for more than a decade. Stayed and finished in the top 10 six times, he reminds in conclusion. (ANI)