Neil and pray... Warnock faces a tough season ahead with QPR's current owners Neil and pray... Warnock faces a tough season ahead with QPR's current owners WHEN Mohamed Al Fayed tugged the drapes from a statue of Michael Jackson in the corner of one of football's most iconic grounds, it seemed the asylum of Premier League owners was finally fully booked. Just as it had when a gaggle of Indian chicken farmers sacked one of the game's most respected managers, tried to hire Diego Maradona and buy David Beckham and Ronaldinho. Just as it does when a silent oligarch sacks his fifth manager in seven years for the crime of going 12 months without a trophy. Truly, the 'No Vacancies' sign has been up on the door of the Premier League madhouse for some time. Since absentee owners saddled Manchester United with outrageous debt, since a couple of jokers made Liverpool a laughing stock, since Far Eastern fancy Dans flounced into Birmingham promising Alex McLeish £80million to spend. And delivered sweet and sour sod all. Briatore and Ecclestone are the smart alecs who will parade supermodels in the stand while fleecing the great unwashed Little did we know there would be room on the funny farm for a couple more. Step forward Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone, the shareholding geniuses who must surely have given their blessing to charge fans a minimum of £47 a throw to get into their ground. The smart alecs who will parade supermodels in the stand while fleecing the great unwashed. All the while, the fit and proper persons' test remains on football's statute book. It is a complex piece of Premier League legislation but let me simplify it for you. Got a load of dough? You're in. And Ecclestone, Briatore and the Mittal family sure have a load of dough. Not that they look likely to spend any of it on new players. Oh no. As Blackpool - accompanied by a nauseating cacophony of misguided romanticism - found out, you can get promoted, refuse to dig into your pockets, lick your lips at the £40m cheque from the Premier League, pocket a parachute payment... and have a damn fine chance of repeating the process all over again. Yet these characters from the silicone world of Formula One feel free to sanction the doubling of season ticket prices at the princely palace that is Loftus Road. "The rises are in line with other London-based Premier League clubs," said an official statement. So. It's your first season in the top flight since 1996. Compared, say, to the Emirates, your stadium is a bit of a dive. Your only 'star' is a Tottenham cast-off and, instead of watching a team that has been assembled for astronomical sums, the home fans will support names who are of the household variety only in their own households. Yet you still want to have the same tariff as Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea. But I guess we should have expected this. After all, Ecclestone goes generally unchallenged in Formula One, where fawning rules. Briatore, in case one should forget, had to leave Formula One because one of his drivers, Nelson Piquet Jr, claimed the perma-tanned Italian had told him to crash. Ecclestone, meanwhile, leaves matches at half-time. To beat the traffic. It is a wonder he doesn't deploy a safety car around Shepherds Bush. The plan for QPR is... to make sure next season we are competitive and keep all the good players we have at the moment - Flavio Briatore Yes, they might have zillions. But they are a couple of proprietors almost beyond parody. But at least they have achieved the extremely unlikely. No. Not taken QPR into the Premier League... but make most people have sympathy for Neil Warnock, the only man who could romp to a Championship triumph yet still lose the vote of his peers for the division's manager of the year. Those are the same peers who are more likely to refer to him not by his name but by an anagram of it. (Google it.) Yet Warnock now has one of the most thankless tasks in football. Warnock lost his main ally in the boardroom when vice-chairman Amit Bhatia - son-in-law of Lakshmi Mittal - resigned, saying his "vision, strategy and direction for the club is very different from that of other shareholders." It seems Ecclestone and Briatore have no intention of selling their 67 per cent share to Mittal (a scenario most supporters would welcome) and have offered their backing to Warnock. From Monaco last week, Briatore said: "The plan for QPR is... to make sure next season we are competitive and keep all the good players we have at the moment. The coach is now looking to set up a very good club." Hardly a promise of transfer largesse. Indeed, informed talk has it that Warnock will be lucky to get £10million to spend. He will have to please supporters who are now feeling disenfranchised by the alarming hike in ticket prices, while all the time looking over his shoulder to see the latest Italian manager being linked with his job. Winning the Championship without any lavish backing from the board might not have been enough for fellow managers to honour Warnock. But if he merely survives another season under these characters, he deserves a medal. Warnock might not be the most straightforward chap around. But set against the rogues' gallery of football club owners, he looks like a saint. http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw/nol....R-madness.ht ml
Thanks North. Seems all parties are now on the same page. Interesting though that Eccles doesn't appear to have moved for Mittal's shares. Like it or not, that keeps Mittal at the table and on Bernie's back!
The mittals must wear them down,just like a good wife (nagnagnagnagnag)sorry ladies of this forum.But things do get done in the end?
The problem is Mittal's shares aren't worth a bean, whether he paid £20 million or £20 billion for them, 33% of the votes at board meetings loses every time. He knows it, Flav knows it and Bernie knows it. On present dealings Bernie has shafted Mittal big-time and Bernie has all the power he needs to run the club plus Mittal's 20% initial purchase was more than Bernie paid for the club in the first place!
I don't know about anyone else, but I found that article very depressing. On the one hand it suggests that by and large we'll have the same playing staff, give or take a few low cost additions. And on the other, having to pay through the nose to watch it! So the final league position come next May, is totally irrelevant, as long as the cash keeps rolling into the club's coffers for nine months or so. I know this is a particularly stupid question, but, do the Goons really think that little of us the supporters?
In a word, yes... Perhaps when their stupidity is reflected in our league position and it dawns on them that the prawn sandwich brigade don't want to be associated with losers, they may actually sell up and then find the price of their asset driven down by their own desperation to sell!
A good post by Finney on this: ================================================== The issue in hand is that the QPR board in there mind see it as this. The prices are put high and for every fan we lose someone else will take that seat. Like the manner they sell F1 tickets so next season they think tourists from all walks of lofe will Q up to pay 47-70 quid to watch QPR play Norwich and so on. If that is the case how come Fulham prices are so low and they still fail to sell out most games? The sad thing is the club are selling the season tickets as a rule to watch the other teams best players and so on. I have never seen such a mindset of a club in my life. And then to say the price hike is in line with most london premier clubs is laughable when you look at the grounds the players and the fact they get championsl league games and we will be fighting the drop all season. And the club do not and have failed in a big way to understand that the way our ground is and the passion of our fans is not just the 12th man we are at times the star of the show. I think that people will pay the money i can't so next season it's the wireless and internet for me and away games. But i will still come down and just to have a verbal go at chelsea fans then go off to the connie and watch the game. That is not my protest that is all i can do i simply do not have the funds to do it. And the sad thing is many will do the same the life blood of this club is flowing down the drains of W12. The greedy souls have killed something in so many ways that is so special not just to us but to football and that is the heart and soul of Queen's Park Rangers.
Thanks Northolt. That about sums it up. But this is where I have a big problem with our friends the Goon's behaviour. If we can all see things the way they are, why can't they? They're supposed to be astute, intelligent businessmen, so why are they conducting affairs in such an unbusiness like manner? One thought sprang to mind, are they trying to run the club in such an appalling way and knowing Mittal has a few spare coppers in his petty cash tin, will offer them anything to get shot off them!
Let's hope this all gets sorted very soon, because I can't see there being much chance of us signing anyone of the caliber we need while this is going on. The goons claimed in their little ranting statement that they had sanctioned money for a signing, and that the Mittals said no. Now none of us know whether that is true or who it was for, but it's clear that while this goes on, Warnock is not going to get the funds he needs.
The Goons are making themselves so unpopular, they won't want to come to the ground next season. I could foresee the ownership issue being resolved at Christmas when QPR are pinned to the bottom of the table and the Mittals come in as white knights...
Definitely a possibility, Andrew, although Eccles says Bluebottle is a reformed character and has got over his sack-the-manager syndrome!
