Are the Mittals really the saviours though?

It is clear Ecclestone wants to turn a fast buck and is looking to screw the Mittals for more money than they were willing to offer for the club. But equally we are left with the conclusion that the Mittals were not willing to stump up what to them is small pototoes to buy out the poison dwarf. Much as we (and they) like to see themselves as the good guys in all this they also seem determined to run the club as a profitable business first and a football club second.

As I said last week, if nobody is willing to act as a benevolent owner one set of business execs are much the same as another. It is heart wrenching that it has come to this - our dreams of a successful future now in serious doubt and the true nature of our owners is laid bare. But let's not put the Mittals up on a pedestal. If they wanted the club badly enough they would have been in charge by now.

Having said all that, wouldn't you just know that you would get screwed over by a scum supporter

 

We wouldn't of been looking at a 40% season ticket increase under the Mittals for a start

 

On a minority shareholding, Mittal put a couple of very bright boys in to stabilise matters. These boys stopped the manager and transfer circus and won our respect. With them the signs were good and getting better.

With a controlling interest, Ecclestone left matters to a buffoon in blue specs... and AAAAAGH!

I know who gets my vote.

 

I actually feel used by the Mittal camp. They know full well that Ecclestone doesn't want to sell at the moment (If you own a club that has just been promoted to the promised land of milk and honey would you sell? No!) That's why he plucked the totally outrageous figure of £100m out of thin air.

Knowing this the Mittal camp pressed forward telling everybody that they are going to buy a majority shareholding. Then there is the nicely leaked "rumour" that £50m would be "made available" for transfers. This is all designed to get the fans behind them. Mittal wants control of the club for BUSINESS reasons, Asian markets and all that. Money "made available" ususally means large loans and not a gift from the majority shareholder. If it goes wrong they cut and run and QPR does a Leeds. The main shareholders lose little and those who are owed money (and the taxman) lose lots.

Over the last few weeks we have seen Rupert Murdoch try and buy F1 from Ecclestone (who doesn't want to sell that either). We are all willing to accept that the **** coming out of the Sun was something to do with Murdoch's revenge.

Now we see Mittal trying something similar at QPR. He wants to buy, but Ecclestone doesn't want to sell. He should have taken note that no matter how much pressure he puts on Ecclestone, no matter how much he promises, no matter how much he gets the fans on his side, Ecclestone isn't going to sell to Mittal. Mittal wants the club on HIS terms and is using every trick in the book to get it in HIS terms. He wants Ecclestone and Briatore to look as bad as possible. He wants the fans to shout abuse and make death threats. It's his way of putting the pressure on. But it won't work.

The politics behind the scenes are like the politics in the houses of parliament. Those who want to be in charge can promise the earth whilst in opposition (especially if they don't think they are going to win!) We know that when they do get into power little changes and they blame their predecessors for all the nasty things that happen. (I somehow doubt that £50m would be "made available". It would end up being "total spend" including transfers, wages over two years and bonuses - which is a totally different thing.) But £50m sounds good.

If I found that a small shareholder was pressurising me to sell my company to him on his terms and that the CEO was working with him, I would sack the CEO. I could not have a CEO working against me. Saksena had to go.

Bhatia has been lucky. His dramatic resignation over the sacking of Saksena has been added to by the ludicrous hike in ticket prices. He can now rally the supporters against Ecclestone and Briatore shouting "I did this for the fans".

These are all business men who want control of QPR. They wouldn't be so wealthy if they couldn't play hardball. Mittal is not some cuddly teddy bear, grandfather figure, he is a businessman like Ecclestone and Briatore - only bigger!

I think that Mittal would be prepared to borrow to spend but the debt would hang over the club and NOT Mittal (as at Man Utd). Ecclestone on the other hand wants to do it without borrowing.

For those of you who are saying what about the TV money. 26 first team players on an average of £5,000 a week equals £67 million a year.

Unfortunately Ecclestone and Briatore know bugger all about running a football club that has thousands of fans that think (quite rightly) that they own the club's spirit if not the shares. It is not like a "normal" business.

The Mittal camp seem to have got what they want. They have destabilised the ship by embarking on a buyout that was never going to happen. They have the fans behind them who see them as the saviours.

Ecclestone did the right thing by bringing in people to steady the ship, but now those people want to mutiny. (It was NOT Mittal who brought the Bhatia and Saksena in. They may be his men, but ultimately it was Ecclestone's decision.)

Quite honestly I think that Ecclestone, Briatore, Paladini, Saksena, Mittal and Bhatia all have their own agendas and are as bad as eachother.

I just hope that Ecclestone has the foresight to bring in someone new to run the ship for him - an experienced, professional football person and NOT Briatore and Paladini.

As regards the hike in ticket prices ... they haven't got a ****ing clue. A very good business decision but totally, morally WRONG.

 

I personally disagree. For me, the Bhatia/Mittal/Saksena way of doing things is what has gained us the previous 18 months of relative success whilst the 2-3 years prior to that was with Briatore/Paladini/Ecclestone doing it their way and we all know what state the club was in on and off the pitch during that time. I have no doubt that in the long run Mittal and/or Bhatia would be looking to make £££ but their way of going about it would have been far more likeable and fairer. I don't know the figures that Mittal offered and Ecclestone wanted but, for sake of argument, if the difference was £20 million then I don't blame Mittal for not just paying it even if it is relatively peanuts to him nor would I blame Ecclestone for not lowering his valuation due to fans' preferences. However, Ecclestone has publicly stated that he knows virtually nothing about football nor QPR and this is worrying. Both him and Briatore are liable to think '**** it' and walk out at any moment whereas, and this may be the naivety of youth, that simply wouldn't happen with the other group. Mittal himself probably cares as little for QPR FC as Ecclestone but he seems to appreciate certain nuances of football and realises that he's better off putting his trust in Saksena and Bhatia who, for me, did very little wrong.

I'm very bitter about the whole situation. I went to my first QPR game in 1994 and started going regularly when I was of an age to do so around 1997 and since then have been given nothing but grief and disappointment by this football club. Like thousands of others I've seen us play and generally lose at a whole assortment of ****holes up and down this country and God knows why but we've stuck with it when the club certainly didn't deserve it. I've always been very proud to call myself a QPR fan and a 'proper' one at that and frankly I'm very bitter that the one real positive for the club in my lifetime has been tainted first by the Faurlin affair tainting our promotion when it should have been a day/week of celebration and now by these rich but unfortunately ill-informed men who are ruining the club that I love. I desperately hope I'm wrong but I really can see our decline starting now and going on for several, several years and it depresses, angers and scares me.

I'm sorry to have gone on so long- I didn't initially intend to but I really do despise the three men currently in charge of our club and feel helpless to stop it. Rome will burn around us if nothing is done quickly but if you know what should happen then you're a better man than me because I haven't a clue.

P.s. 26 players on 5k/week wouldn't be £67m although I assume this is a typo on your part.

 

Eamon, Don't disagree with you that Bhatia's withdrawal may well be tactical in the Mittal campaign to buy the club. The fans are behind the Mittals, and the family will use that card for all its worth. But I disagree that all the business players are as bad as each other. The fans are not stupid - they realise that Bhatia (in particular) and Saksena had a genuine interest in the club as fans, as well as part-business owners. Their heart is in the club and it shows. And they have been effective as much needed managers after the Briatore revolving-door-manager debacle. You give credit to Ecclestone for bringing in their talent - I say give the Indians the credit. If the Mittals bought the club, then of course, their would be corporate priorities - we'd all be naive to think there wouldn't be - but I believe that unlike Ecclestone and Briatore, the Mittals would factor in the interests of the fans. They would recognise that a football club isn't just like any other business that has a commercial relationship with the public - the relationship between fans and club is much closer than that.

 

I can't believe I'm reading this post???? Who the hell do you want in charge?

Eamon, this may well be a ploy by Mittal to gain more public backing from the fans for a takeover, and why the hell not. How many of our illustrious board members were at our promotion party? I didn't notice any sun tanned Santa or any little umpa lumpa. But I did notice I rather large Indian presence. But you seem to neglect that fact that Ecclestone made it VERY public that there were an interested party a month or two ago and that he will always listen to offers. So your point is way off the mark by claiming that Mittal is using the same dirty game as Murdoch.

Whoever owns the club will always have it's business interests at heart, it is a business after all. IF the business goes to pot, so does the football. This seems to be something that most fans forget. So whether it's Ecclestone or Mittal, both will be looking very hard at the business side of things and trying to make it as self sufficient as possible. The difference is that Ecclestone will not invest in the club, so the likelihood of us being able to sustain things in the Premier League is going to be very slim. Whereas I believe with Mittal we would be working our way up the table over a number of years. Plus Mittal would almost definitely build a new stadium as this is priority number one if we are to become financially stable.

So some fans are asking questions about the Mittals, which baffles me to say the least, but you fail to mention any other 'Saviors' who might be there for us. So who is our Savior???

 

That's my whole point LoneRanger: there are no true saviours for us to job into the arms of. We have not got the benefit of a Russian oligarch or Arab royal family who care nothing about cost and only about winning stuff. Both the major players in this battle want to run the club as a business and it is pure speculation that the Mittals would be the better option. As Eamon says the Mittals have done a very good job of prepping their takeover bid to the public as an act of benevolence but Eccleston simply wasn't falling for it. Again, if the Mittals truly want to take control they could easily offer Ecclestone enough cash that he slinks away. They have not done so. The evidence that they rather than Ecclestone would invest enough in the club to ensure long term success is non-existent. 'Almost definitely...' says it all here.

 

I'm with you Watford. The Mittals brought stability and I really don't buy the idea that they are in it for business. We're talking about the world's fourth richest man here, I hardly seeing that buying our little club in Shepherds Bush as being the keystone to vast untold wealth in asia. You're being too cynical mate.

 

3 years under Briatore/Ecclestone rule = 100 managers, scandal and lower table finishes.

Mittal/Bhatia & Saksena come in = Warnock, stability and promotion.

Not hard to do the math on that one.

 

100% agree with Watford_R's take on this.

For the average fan, football provides both culture and dreams. A welcome relief from the pressure of life.

There are two groups in the ownership mix. One that both blatantly states and demonstrates it cares not a jot for the fans; and the other that regardless of so called 'hidden agendas', at least acknowledges our sensitivities.

If we are talking about two commercial evils, which from our point of view is the lesser?

 

I think you see everything through negative tinted glasses. Thank god we haven't got the same kind of owners as City and Chelsea, then I would be worried.

As it is the Mittals have shown they are commited and want to stay for the long haul. Unlike the other two who think we're their own pulling machine and a KFC.

But I still don't get where you're coming from, you seem to be playing devils advocate, but along what lines? You don't want Bernie and Flav and you bemoan the Mittals???

So who do you want? You don't want the people the wont spend and you don't want the ones you claim they do want to spend? Its a lose/lose with you.

 

No, it's a win win, cos he can have a moan!