QPR ‘could be relegated to Conference’ unless they pay £40m FFP fine

Owen Gibson
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theguardian.com, Tuesday 9 September 2014 14.30 BST

The Football League has confirmed QPR could be consigned to the Conference in the event of relegation from the top flight if they refuse to pay a huge fine incurred under its financial fair play rules.

QPR are expected to face a fine of up to £40m when they reveal their financial results later this year, covering the season they spent in the Championship following relegation from the Premier League.

The club posted record pre-tax losses of £65.4m for the year ending May 2013, when they were relegated from the Premier League. The losses for the last financial year, expected to be made public in December, are also expected to be sizeable.

The QPR chairman Tony Fernandes has vowed to fight any fine imposed by the Football League, which would have to go to charity rather than the other clubs under an agreement with the Premier League over its solidarity payments.

The Football League chief executive, Shaun Harvey, said he was “satisfied” that it would be able to charge QPR for a breach of the rules while they were still part of the competition and that the ultimate sanction would be to refuse re-admission.

“Theoretically, that is the position but I would hope there would be resolution long before that option even had to be considered. The one thing for certain is that most clubs [in the Premier League] will become a Football League club again,” said Harvey, speaking at the Soccerex conference in Manchester.

“Now QPR will of course be hoping it does not happen for some considerable number of seasons but the chances they will need to return to the Football League fold at some point. Certainly, three of the 20 clubs that are in the Premier League will be in the Football League next season.”

Clubs that remain within the Football League that breach the rules, introduced in 2012, face a transfer embargo but those that win promotion are fined instead.

“Will we fight the fine? What do you think? After all we’ve been through, it’s my middle name – ‘Fight It’ Fernandes,” said the QPR chairman after the club won promotion.

“My view has been consistent, that it is very unfair for a club that has been relegated as the wage difference between the Premier League and Championship is impossible. There should be a time period for clubs to rectify their salaries.

“If we were in the Championship in two years with that wage bill it wouldn’t be right. I’m in favour of FFP but it is unfair for a club coming down.”

The Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, is also on record as saying the rules needed to be amended. Harvey said there was little chance of them being altered before the FFP declarations had to be made on 1 December.

Harvey said: “Unless the 24 clubs vote to change the rules, the rules as they are now will stay in place. I don’t suspect there is any form of rule change that would be considered or brought forward that would see the current circumstances we potentially face changing.”

He added that discussions with the Premier League were continuing over trying to standardise their financial fair play rules.

“There’s a long-standing discussion that’s taken place between the Football League and the Premier League as to how to try to ensure that we have regulations that actually work for clubs regardless of which division they’re in,” he said.

“We do talk to them periodically about any number of issues and this features – being topical – relatively high on that agenda.”

 

Better not get relegated then, ever.

Simples.

 

The elephant in the room is threatening to play squash

 

This must affect Cardiff and Fulham at least this year too - in fact most clubs going down

 

If (big IF) we were relegated to the Conference due to FFP, jut wondering if people's opinions on TF would change???

 

It's just like Faurlin-gate all over again! Every man and his dog loves to speak up and say what punishment we're going to receive long before any semblance of guilt or rule breaking has been proved. The owners will fight this in the courts or reach a settlement long before the league see us dumped down to the conference. It's just another mouth doing his best to put us down and scare the owners into a hefty pay out.

What will happen if a fine is upheld after an appeal? Nothing...the owners will pay it...

I give it a couple of hours before Mark Palios is trotted out by the BBC to discuss it.

 

Nothing will happen, you will end up with a small fine compared to the £40M and that will be the end of it.

A £40M fine is absurd and relegating your 4 divisions is laughable swell. FFP is a very good idea in theory but not practical in the real world

 

Scare-mongering and sensationalist journalism - the owners will pay some form of fine (as decided by appeal panel, not some journo picking numbers for a non-story) well before relegation from FL. Almost every relegated club from PL to FL in the future is going to fall foul of the FFP regulations - they going to demote them all to Conference?

 

Despite posting the OP I actually completely agree with both of you. No way it would get to that point, it'd be impossible to impose and they would have to do it almost every year for relegated prem clubs.

Ain't that the truth!

 

If there was a court case under way in which QPR was challenging the fine, it would be difficult for the Football League to do much until the case was tried or settled. And the most likely outcome would be settlement. So I shan't be losing sleep...

 

They're called relegation clauses. No doubt your new players have them in their contracts.

 

Here we go again. Please do not let the facts get in the way of sensationalist story.

 

Spot on!

 

No it isn’t!! Sadly it is an idiot football bureaucrat who’s scratching around imposing illogical socialist rules

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...mpetitions-over-Financial-Fair-Play-fine.html

Discussing the prospect of denying Rangers entry to Football League competitions, Harvey said: “I would hope there would be resolution long before that option even had to be considered.

“The one thing for certain is that most clubs [in the Premier League] will become a Football League club again.

“Now QPR will, of course, be hoping it does not happen for some considerable number of seasons. But the chances they will need to return to the Football League fold at some point in the future.”

So rather than scaremongering journalists I think it is just some idiot at the football league-

This guy clearly is an idiot and I can guarantee this will attract idiots from other boards coming onto this thread so i ask them:

Why it isn’t reasonable for a chairman being asked to pay a fine of £40m to check the legal justification of being instructed to pay such a large sum of money?

 

I'm sure Tony can afford some very powerful lawyers. FFP won't stand up in court, imo.
Besides... He's got the 40mill. So if ever it got to the stage where relegation to the conference was a genuine possibility, he'd pay up.

Wouldn't getting Airasia to give us a new "sponsorship deal" equal to the value of the deficit remedy this situation, anyway?

 

Much of what you say PD is true, the guy from FL is an idiot, however the story IS sensationalist and it was the journo (or his editor) who came up with the headline. The use of the word "could" in the headline is as ambiguous as it gets - he may have written "Tony Fernandes could fly to the moon" - it may possibly happen, but the odds are very much against it!

 

Sure, a court case would put a fine on hold but what court could stop a relegation order? Possibly the court for arbitration in sport based in Switzerland but that's an Appeal Court and can't see them being able to overturn a relegation decision or whether that would even be within their mandate/jurisdiction?

As for Fernandes my opinion remains the same as always.

 

Big statement to make- are you basing that assumption on any sort of legal precedent or knowledge or is that jut your personal assumption based purely on instinct

Also it wouldn’t be a relegation it would be an exclusion from the league- we would have to apply to join the conference- but it isn’t clear if we would be allowed back in should we win the conference

 

There's still a lot of speculation about results that haven't been issued yet. I assume there will be a big deficit but I couldn't say for certain it would be £65 million purely because it was that much the year before.

I'm no legal expert, but I have the impression that a lot hinges on precedence and since this is new, the rules themselves could be subject to amendment if they're considered legally unfair. Even the overzealous giant rabbit seems to imply that they're unfair at the end of the OP so it could be a saving grace (or the article is just pieced together from hypotheticals and massively edited to make the point).

Ultimately, nobody within football wants clubs to go under and the extreme measures they're talking about would, with a high probability, push us out of position of stability (albeit not a profitable one). That's not ensuring financial fair play by means of a fine is it?

 

It's what Nike are paying us to wear their off the shelf kit.

Sadly, I am willing to bet that our losses in the next set of accounts will be bigger than the last one, as they will cover our death throes in the Prem last time.