please log in to view this image EXCLUSIVE By CHARLIE WYETT Last Updated: 14th March 2012 QPR face a financial nightmare if they are relegated — because NONE of their stars will be forced to take a pay cut. Hoops' big earners like £70,000-a-week Joey Barton and January signing Djibril Cisse, who gets £60,000 a week, will still be paid their contracts if they drop into the Championship. Premier League players normally see their wages cut by between 33-50 per cent if they are relegated. But Rangers were so desperate to sign players like Shaun Wright-Phillips and Anton Ferdinand last summer they did not include a relegation clause in contracts following their promotion in May. QPR's mega-rich owner Tony Fernandes has deep pockets but it seems he is now realising the impact of relegation, with some players on four-year deals worth over £10million. Chief executive Phillip Beard said: "Ideally, we stay in the Premier League. If things don't work out, we'll fight tooth and nail to come back up." http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/4192856/QPR-face-financial-apocalypse-if-they-are-relegated-from-Prem.html It's The Sun so make of it what you like. I've been wondering about our high earners and what their contract stipulates regarding relegation. If this were to be accurate I say we have one chance of going straight up or it's tits up for us.
Typical 'Sun' lazy journo bollox IMO. Theyv'e hated us since the points deduction story was proved to be utter c### and now seem to take every opportunity to run us down. God i hate that excuse for a paper I would like to hope we DO keep our players 'cos surely it would mean we got a great chance to come straight back up again
I really don't understand it.How the hell can players like those be on £60-70k a week? You really have to ask questions about the people who run your club.I am led to believe that Norwich has a £15k wage cap.That's still the very best part of a million pounds a year.Seems as if the bankers are not the only ones taking the p*ss.
A.troare has already dome out and said that if we go down, he and a number of other players will have there weekly wage cut.!!
Its bollocks as the above post said, new signings have the wage cuts but it looks like the older signings had a promotion clause but not a relegation clause hence the Mackie bit.
Setting Barton aside I don't see the problem here. If our PL standard players are happy to play in the Championship then we will have an excellent chance of bouncing back at the first attempt and the financial impact of a single season outside of the PL will be little more than a blip. If they all insist on transfers and someone is willing to buy out their existing deals then the contractual issue is a non-issue. What am I missing Mr Sun journalist (sic)? Our Joey is a special case of course. With his current level of commitment and impact he would be under-qualified for a League 1 outfit let alone the PL. Fernades just needs to write down that loss and send him on gardening leave for the next 2 years.
AAARGHHH I think the inference is if we go down with mega buck wage bills and our owners pull out we could be Pompey MkII. We know our owners and especially Amit & Mittal have said they are in it for the long term but motivating a host of exInternational ego's on big dough to perform away at Barnsley on a wet Tuesday could be tricky especially as Hughes has no Championship / promotion experience.
Guys, we'll be fine. Joey isnt on £80k a week anyway. Probably £60k. We could afford to pay them all for one year in the Championship. Its just if we dont bounce back up we'll be in trouble. I think we will bounce back, the players, manager, staff and owners will make sure. I have faith in them but the season it hasnt happened for a variety of reasons. We'll go down and bounce straight back up.
The phrase 'too good to go down' is bandied about every season but why does nobody say 'not good enough to stay up'? When we have only won 5 games all season I think the latter is more applicable to us. Should the inevitable happen and we drop down why on earth would any of our recent signings want to stay and play for us in the Championship? You would hope that it would be out of a sense of professional pride seeing as they are in part responsible for our current position but I don't think old school passion and loyalty exists much more these days. I'm not saying it is all the players fault as clubs also show little in the way of loyalty too but you'd like to think that on their wages the players would be prepared to dig in. Would we accept half-arsed performances from the likes of Barton, Cisse, Zamora et al if we were mid-table in the Championship this time next year? Do we become like other up and down clubs who work hard to get promoted only to be relegated either the very next season or one or two years later? West Brom, Wolves, Bolton, Birmingam have all had a taste of it and the Championship is full of teams who have been in the Premiership before, a quick look at the division shows only about 5 teams who have never been in the Prem. There is an outside chance that we could nick a few more wins and get decent draws against some of the big teams and may just be able to do enough to leave Bolton, Wolves and Wigan below us on the last day of the season. Some on this board are clinging onto that hope and well done to you for your optimism. I, on the other hand, am convinced that we are a poor team who have not played well despite bringing in players worth £millions and will go down only a few points above Wigan. The real fight for survival will be between Wolves and Bolton, Blakcburn are going to do enough to steer clear. I'd be chuffed to be proven wrong.
Im sure thats what everyone thought last time, ironically wed have more chance of bouncing right back if we didnt buy Barton and SWP as we now have a divide squad with a massive gap in wages. We had the players to stay up, we dont have the team to stay up and you could say last season we didnt have the players to go up but we had the team to go up and I always prefer the team option even if it means we have lesser players.
To be honest WBA if our owners pull out before their wider project has had time to bear fruit our club will be toast even if we stay up this year. My expectation on player retention is somewhere in the middle of the two extremes: Players like SWP, Young and Zamora may well stay on as their options elsewhere will be limited. I think they would all shine in the Championship and would retain enthusiasm. If I was the manager I would be desperate to keep the younger talent such as Traore, Taarabt and Diakite. It may just be possible with the right deal in place but there would be no point in blocking a big move if it were available. The likes of Cisse and Onuaha would be gone come what may.
Guilty conscious ! I wonder if you could make a profit from promotion demotion promotion demotion ...every other season would be fanstastic, that would be Rollers name really real !!
From what I've heard from your current owners if you come down and don't go up first time you've got more of an issue with the Financial Fair Play rules coming in than of the club going bust. Having players on expensive 4 year contracts, even with parachute payments will see your financial losses being high for a few years. You could end up winning the league and being blocked promotion because your accounts from the previous seasons show too high a loss. I've got the same concern with us because we lost £22M last season, we're losing money again this season, and we're only due to break even from next season onwards. So since the last of those accounts is going to be published in March 2014 our 3 year rolling total until the 2014/15 season is going to be horrific.
Ricardo I think the Financial Fair Play rules only apply to clubs qualifying for UEFA competitions as per the article extract below - 'Uefa set out the sanctions which will be available for a semi-independent panel to impose on clubs in breach of the rules from 2014-15. Depending on the seriousness of the clubs' financial situations, the penalties range from a reprimand, to a fine, deduction of points in Uefa's competitions, withholding income, prohibiting the registration of players or restricting the number of players a club can field, leading ultimately to a ban from the Champions or Europa Leagues'
As things stand, our future is more about maintaining the interest of our owners than avoiding relegation. If they believe in their medium to long term plan (including youth development, new ground and so on), they'll have contingencies in place for a year or even two in the Championship. Parachute payments go on for four years I think. They're as aware of the ****-ups over the past year or so as we are - probably more so. They'll have learned a lot of late and will doubtless be up for another run at the big time. Dread to think what would happen if the Mittals lose interest though.
The Football League voted last summer to adopt them as well. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jun/10/football-league-uefa-fair-play
Assuming it hasn't changed again since we got relegated, it shouldn't have because we were the first ones it applied to, and it's usually connected to new TV deals which run for 3 years, which would make this year's relegated clubs the 3rd lot to receive them, you get £16M a year for 2 years, and then £8M a year for 2 years after that to give you a total of £48M.
