This is a complete joke. I can't imagine how angry the Luton fans must feel when their team got points deducted and got relegated for being found guilty of the same thing. The FA needs to have consistency in its discipline. I'm sure if it was a mid table team there would have been no hesitation to hand out a points deduction. Instead they give the wealthy team a hefty fine which is no skin off their nose. They might aswell scrap the rule if they can't give the appropriate punishment to every team regardless of there place in the table. I know everyone wanted QPR to have a deduction to ruin their promotion party and plunge them into the playoffs, and although that would have been amusing, that's not why i'm annoyed (it's better that they are out of the championship anyway as they would surely run away with it again next season if they had not been promoted). I'm annoyed as a football fan because it is clearly unjust and unfair. The FA had chance to set a precedent after the farce with Tevez, but instead they chose to confuse and undermine the rules they had set in place. How can any team take the rules seriously when there is absolutley no consistency. Rant over.
Got away with it in the end then. What was the point of the investigation if the FA were going to be this spineless? Thought it was about making examples out of those in the wrong. Obviously not.
Erm......they've been found not guilty of almost all the charges. This is an FA **** up, not a QPR one.
But they still got found guilty of two out of seven. And, agreed regarding the FA, it just adds more fuel to the fire with Uefa condemning the English FA as being 'weak'.
Also we don't know what the seven charges were, and what the two they were found guilty of actually were. Unless the FA releases a statement about it, we never will know.
The 7 charges were listed on various QPR sites a few weeks ago. I'll dig them out if I get chance later, but one of them carries a fine of about ã30,000 based on previous guilty clubs' puishments.
No suprise really, just stupid how it had to drag on this much. To dilly dally over announcing the punishment like they have done has made the FA look very unprofessional and hardly restores any faith the footballing public has in them.
This is utter ****. I was under the impression they had already been found guilty of, this was to establish the level of punishment based on the 7 charges. I would imagine QPR being as wealthy as they are have been able to make some charges disappear. Sheisters. Cheats never prosper.....unless you're QPR clearly.
I'm not sure that's the case, the third party ownership charges always sounded dodgy, as there were no third party ownership rules in place when QPR signed Faurlin. I think is just an almighty **** up by the FA and QPR hadn't really done anything wrong, other than perhaps making a mess of the paperwork.
It's a good job they did get it sorted today, they were saying on 5 live that had any decision still have been failed to be made after the weekend then there was a chance that the play offs would have to have being delayed, which really isn't fair on the other teams and supporters involved in the play offs. Obviously this is now irrelevant, but the fact that a decision was left till the end of the season and with a minimal punishment delivered, the FA have hardly emerged from this matter in a positive light.
Here's the 7 charges: Charges against QPR: 1) Entering contracts with third-party organisations enabling them "materially to influence" the club's policies or its team's performance 2) Entering contracts assigning rights to or making payments to a third party in connection with a player transfer 3) Providing the FA with allegedly false information in later contract extension documents 4) Bringing the game into disrepute 5) Using the services of an unauthorised agent Charges against Gianni Paladini: 1) Bringing the game into disrepute 2) Concealing or misrepresenting the reality and/or substance of matters relating to a transaction or contract negotiation ----------------------------------------------- QPR1) they deny there was any ability to influence the team. Burden of proof is on the FA to show that there was. QPR2) they did whilst it was allowed and contacted the authorities ahead of it being banned to find out what to do. It's not QPR's fault the authorities didn't bother telling them for 4 months. QPR3) I'm not sure how accurate it is, but that's supposed to relate to declaring a circa ã600k fee when they signed him whilst claiming a ã3.5M deal publically. Apparently the FA were unable to spot the way QPR had spun the transfer to make it sound bigger to fans by including all the clauses and the player's wages in the deal) QPR4) If they're not guilty of other offences, or are guilty of them only due to the FA being incompetent then they're not guilty of this. QPR5) If they're guilty of this then the precedent is Bristol City who were fined ã30k. GP1) and 2) Clearly connected to the above charges, but as they're against an individual they wouldn't return with a points penalty so I'm not considering them. Assuming it's QPR that have been found guilty of two offences and not just 2 of the 7 then I'm going 2) and 5). 1) being unproven, 3) being wrongly charged, and 4) dismissed as Bristol weren't charged with BTGIR and in the case of charge 2) it was down to the FA rather than QPR that the situation arose. With both being administrative issues rather than competition issues a fine is the correct decision.
No, they were charged with it in March and told the hearing of the evidence would be this week. No verdict had been made in any charges despite what ill informed numpties decided to say to the press.
