Chairman John Williams resigns from Blackburn Rovers

The Blackburn Rovers chairman, John Williams, has resigned after 14 years at the club. Williams spent yesterday discussing a severance package with Anuradha Desai, the chairwoman of Venky's, three months after the poultry giant bought the club from the Walker Family Trust. "With our new owners the Venky's Group, I have no doubt this is a new dawn for the club," Williams told the club's official website. "There is a new order, a new way of doing things and I believe the time is right for me now to move on." Venky's marked its arrival with the dismissal of the manager Sam Allardyce less than a month after completing a £46m takeover. Now Williams, a respected figure in Premier League circles, has followed Allardyce through the exit door, despite pre-takeover assurances from the company that the senior management would remain in place at Ewood Park. Desai, who attended her first Rovers fixture by watching the 1-0 home defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday, is expected to appoint a new chairman from within the Venky's group, having already handed Blackburn directorships to Gandhi Babu and Mahesh Gupta. The departure of Williams, who was appointed to the board by Jack Walker 14 years ago and had been chairman for 13 years, will not be a shock within the game due to his widely-known concern over events at Ewood Park since Venky's arrival. Williams was dismayed by the sacking of Allardyce, who had guided Blackburn to a top-10 finish last season, and he had contemplated resigning in protest at the dismissal.