Just curious, but does Lakshmi Mittal et al really see QPR as an investment? With all due respect, surely there are better options if that's all it is? It has to be a passion doesn't it? (I don't know, I'm just curious)
Why else would he have put his millions in? The ones who really made a financial killing were Ecclestone and Briatore who sold 20% to Mittal in 2009 for £20 million which was £6 million more than they paid for the club originally. They increased this to 33% and were expected to buy out the rest but had a fall-out with the F1 boys and that's were Fernandes came in. Everything has gone pear-shaped since then...
It's hardly unheard of is it? That's all I'm saying. Delia at my club, Jack Walker at Blackburn. I know the detestable Ecclestone and Briatore were in it for the money (like they needed it), but it's small fry in the Mittal's world, no?
Is there anything to stop the owners selling the ground and the few players that are worth anything and washing their hands of the whole business? Loftus Road must be worth more to them as a supermarket and/or flats than the loss making concern it is now. I don't trust Tony Fernandes and coincidentally it's gone very quiet on the Mittal front. At the end of the day the Goons achieved more than he did at a fraction of the price and using them as a comparison is setting the bar very low indeed. Would like to see the Mittals buy him out after relegation and put Amit in charge. He's someone with some real interest in football and has done work in South Asia to move the sport forward among the youth. Fernandes has done nothing similar. Apart from being ripped off by Joorabchian and his lapdog MH what has Fernandes actually achieved at QPR? Something concrete, anything...?
Imaz, I know that you are anti-capitalist and a conspiracy theorist par excellence but I don't get why you prefer Mittal to Fernandes. Surely Mittal is just as evil to you - gave cash to Blair, ignores workers rights in his companies, asset strips all over the place. Plus he practices nepotism - giving his son in law a slice of our club to play with, while he himself is not interested in football apart from a passing dalliance with Chelsea. If these guys do take over they will be absentee landlords, very little investment - because, unlike Tony, their business model is exploitation not investment. Remind me what exactly the Mittals are contributing to our club at the moment. Is F1 more corrupt than road cycling?
Certainly exploiters, Lakshmi Mittal started off in Indonesia with some run down concern with multiple fatalities, pollution and slave wages. Notice how Indonesia links also to Fernandes, korupsi, kolusi, nepotisme capital of the ****ing world. Mittal is downright evil, don't get me wrong on that. All I want is stability for QPR, Fernandes won't bring it. You are the one who understands finance more than me, SB. Tony doesn't have any money, what he has isn't his. The Mittals however have loads.
So there we have it. Few owners buy in simply because of their love of the club they are buying. I'd go so far as to say we haven't had one since Jim Gregory. Tony is a decent bloke but we were not his club to begin with. He simply wanted to buy one and his mates came along with a dream, the one they'd run into the ground up till then. It's important to remember that while we ache in our hearts if things go wrong, the owners have rather more mercenerary concerns on thier mind. "Will I get my money back?", "Who can I sue?" "Is there a better place to put my money?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fan-owned_sports_teams "All German football clubs—except for some historic works teams that are allowed to maintain their company affiliation, such as Volkswagen's VfL Wolfsburg and Bayer's Bayer 04 Leverkusen—are required to have at least 51% member ownership; when Red Bull purchased the playing license of the Leipzig-area club SSV Markranstädt and renamed the football team RB Leipzig, it could only acquire 49% of the shares, and could not use the full Red Bull name due to other German rules. Member ownership is also the standard in most other professional sports leagues. Apart from the aforementioned Wolfsburg, Bayer Leverkusen and RB Leipzig, some other football clubs enjoy strong backing of local industries or of deep-pocketed individuals, such as 1899 Hoffenheim (backed by SAP cofounder Dietmar Hopp, who played in the club's youth setup). In some cases fans have also re-founded bankrupt or otherwise disappeared clubs, one such example is Lokomotive Leipzig." That is how things should be.
I'm struggling after that. Whenever I think of Tony I can't help thinking of the saying "the road to ruin is paved with good intentions" I do think he means well, but I think several of the problems we are seeing on the pitch may roll up to Tone's leadership style. I genuinely think Tone is too worried about being popular with everyone and not worried enough about achieving success. In my opinion if he treats the players the same as he treats the fans, (ie, wants to be in with the boys) I think its a fairly easy case to make that he may be the cause of some of our on pitch problems.
You are of course right. Mittal paid 20% of the cost of his daughter's wedding from change from down the back of the sofa as a favour to Ecclestone (who's ghastly house he also bought) so Briatore was no longer a serious owner in anticipation of inevitable 'fit and proper person' investigations. No way is this an investment - investment in what, accumulating debt? No one has ever bought more steel because the manufacturer is associated with a football club. His 'investment' is a hobby to give his son in law something to do, though, as is common with the rich and spoilt, he seems to be losing interest. For Fernandes, who has loads of consumer brands, the association makes perfect sense. If the club is successful......
Why doesn't this happen in the UK? Looks like it works well in Gemany, Spain, Ireland etc. Here it's only AFC Wimbledon and Exeter that are in the FL. Would ****ing love it if it were the case for us. Our fans owning the club would be halfway to heaven.
Think it has to be every club if you want things to be competitive. Perhaps Financial Fair Play will push us in the right direction. The Bundesliga is going from strength to strength in terms of quality of football, quality of players, TV income, 3 teams through in CL, all in financial balance. Only Bayern try to bugger it up by buying the other teams best players to make them less of a challenge. All my German colleagues either support Bayern or hate them.
You're havin' a laugh ain't ya? Did you just lump the League of Ireland in with the Bundesliga and La Liga?
