Queens Park Rangersâ Fernandes Is Backing Soccer-Finance Shakeup By Peter-Joseph Hegarty Jan 31, 2014 2:00 AM GMT+0200 Tony Fernandes, owner of English soccer team Queens Park Rangers, is backing rules aimed at making clubs live within their means as scrutiny on the sportâs finances intensifies. European ruling body UEFAâs âfinancial fair playâ regulations are aimed at protecting clubsâ stability by stopping them overspending after Europe-wide losses rose to more than $2 billion. From this season teams that break the rules could be excluded from elite European competitions such as the Champions League. Rich owners have poured hundreds of millions of pounds into English Premier League clubs. Itâs paid off, with Roman Abramovichâs Chelsea winning three league titles, four F.A. Cups and the Champions League. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan has seen his Manchester City team win the F.A. Cup and league. Success has come at a cost. Last month, Chelsea posted a loss of 49.4 million pounds ($82 million) for 2012-13, following its first profit under Abramovich the previous season, and said it was confident of meeting the FFP criteria. Fernandes, chief executive officer of AirAsia Bhd. (AIRA) and with a net worth of $625 million according to Forbes magazine last year, says FFP can boost clubsâ financial security. Fans shouldnât rely on wealthy owners covering losses, he said. âItâs important for the fans to realize that they shouldnât be relying on shareholders as benefactors,â the 49-year-old said in an interview. âItâs important that there is Financial Fair Play. Look, letâs be real: football is not communist, egalitarian. Big clubs are going to be big and smaller clubs are going to be smaller but I think with Financial Fair Play at least everyone has a chance to make some money.â City in Spotlight Manchester City yesterday said it cut its annual loss in about half for a second straight year. The loss declined to 51.6 million pounds ($85.4 million) after an English record of 197.5 million in 2010-11. QPR, second in the Championship after four straight league wins, is striving to rejoin Chelsea and City in the top flight after a two-year stay that ended in relegation last year. That came even after doubled spending on wages, for players such as forward Shaun Wright-Phillips and midfielder Joey Barton, led to a loss of 22.6 million pounds in 2011-12. FFP places ceilings on clubsâ permitted losses with the aim of bringing them toward break-even over several years. Critics say it may freeze the status quo and choke off competition from clubs with rich new owners. Fernandes said heâs a âbig advocateâ of FFP as a way of stopping clubs spending excessively and says FFP will make a âbig difference.â âGreater Resourcesâ âQPR canât be a club that relies on the shareholderâs money,â the Malaysian said. âThatâs not a good thing for the club, if anything happens to the shareholder.â Fernandes says the clubâs youth system is vital and heâll try to keep young players such as Raheem Sterling, who left for Liverpool. And a planned 40,000-seat stadium in Old Oak, within two miles of the current ground at Loftus Road in West London, is critical for the clubâs future, he said. The stadium could cost about 150 million pounds. âThereâs going to be a good transport link there,â he said. âLondon is a big catchment area and weâll pull in fans from other parts as well. Weâll have to work on the young kids. I come from an airline where we fill it by pricing it lower. I hope that we can drive prices down by having a bigger stadium and filling it. Iâm a little bit old fashioned in that if you build it weâll fill it.â Revenue Gap This week Ivan Gazidis, chief executive officer of Arsenal, said the club is looking forward to FFP, although he said the team remains âhealthy skeptics about that.â It is needed to take the edge off a ârelentless spiral of spending,â he said. Fernandes declined to say how much heâs invested in QPR since taking a majority shareholding in 2011, with the Mittal family retaining a third. He said his club spent too much after it was promoted. âWe survived the first season on a fairly reasonable wage and then we thought weâre never going to get relegated and we bought a lot of players who didnât gel and maybe didnât have their heart in it,â he said. Heâs learned from his mistakes and is ready for the challenge if the team is promoted this season. âItâs not the end of the world if we donât go up but, boy, it would be great to,â he said. âIâve learned so much. I never have any regrets in life but Iâm a lot smarter. Weâre just smarter and weâll do it better.â His aim is wants to see QPR established in the top division. âIf we could put QPR on the map and be like an Everton, a Premier League club thatâs been there for 20 seasons, and make the fans feel itâs something to be proud of, then I would have achieved something and thatâs a great feeling.â http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-31/queens-park-rangers-fernandes-is-backing-soccer-finance-shakeup.html And yet we seem to be the only one criticized for buying players and overspending.
