Tony Fernandes is not just talking the talk but helping the club to think bigger

Tony Fernandes is not just talking the talk but helping the club to think bigger - Telegraph

“It’s been the toss of a coin on how the club has been run over the last few years,” Warnock said. “There’s been no thought about longevity from previous regimes. It’s been about today or tomorrow. I didn’t think that anybody could come in and do what he’s done in such a short space of time. People talk but he doesn’t talk, he gets things done. It’s just fantastic what is happening behind the scenes.”

Fernandes is no Abramovich and he is no Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan — the owner of Manchester City, QPR’s opponents at Loftus Road this evening — but the 47-year-old is a millionaire with powerful backing. Crucially, he is using that to overhaul a club in which he acquired a 66 per cent stake in late August for around £35 million, buying out the unhappy regime of Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore and becoming chairman.

“Coming into the club where it was and where the fans were then, it was kind of hard not to be accepted,” said the Malaysian entrepreneur, who made his money through first saving and then hugely expanding the budget airline AirAsia. “I’m on the honeymoon period and I’m certainly under no illusion that it will last forever.”

Harlington is a bugbear. “I used to play there when I was at university so it was a bit of a shock for me to see that’s our training ground,” added Fernandes, who lived above a kebab shop in Uxbridge Road while taking an accountancy degree at the London School of Economics.

Not that QPR fans can expect the same level of investment as Abramovich and Mansour have sunk into their clubs. “But,” Warnock says, “in relative terms we have spent a lot of money — Joey Barton, [Shaun] Wright-Phillips, Anton Ferdinand, [Armand] Traoré, Luke Young — in respect of where we were 12 months ago. So we have gone up the ladder a little bit in terms of our expectations.”

That expenditure has helped convince any doubters that Fernandes, who came close to buying West Ham United last year, is more than just a sharp marketing man with a bucketful of ideas.

“I went to the pub before the last home match,” Fernandes said. “And the club were saying, ‘You’ll have to take bodyguards’, but I wasn’t having that. The landlord said it was the first time an owner of the club had come in and the fans were wanting to buy me pints, or for me to buy them pints!”

Fernandes has not come in with grand statements. He will not make the mistakes of the likes of former West Ham Chairman Eggert Magnusson, who promised the Champions League and almost ruined the club. “The ambition right now is modest — let’s stay up,” Fernandes said. “There is no three-year plan, there is no five-year plan. I don’t know where we will be this time next year. When I bought the airline people said I would be out of business in three months. So I have never been one to make promises.

“But as with everything else that I have done, the airline and Formula One [he is team principal for Lotus], I believe it [QPR] is an unpolished diamond. In two years at Lotus we have closed the gap hugely [with the other F1 teams] and I’m hoping to do good things with QPR.

“However, every business must be run as a business. It should not be run as a hobby. With a bit of love, tender care and planning, you can make this into an established Premier League club and make some money out of it.”

Indeed, the biggest shock has been a simple one. “I find it amazing that in a sport awash with money so many clubs face a financial squeeze,” Fernandes said. “That can’t be right and there are lessons to be learnt from other sports such as NFL. In saying that it’s probably a good time to buy into football because more and more clubs are looking to break even.”

It is also fun. “To think I’m going to watch us play City, next week there’s the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and then owning an airline.”

“It’s a dream come true. There are downs as well but I always think of the positives. I do pinch myself. I turn up at Loftus Road with a huge grin.”

It is certainly not like being on a treadmill.

iReader
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...alk-but-helping-the-club-to-think-bigger.html

 

He may own an airline but his feet are firmly on the ground. You can't help but feel optimistic every time you hear him talk about the club.

 

We look to be in good hands.

 

Interesting. Thanks for this, Northolt. I find myself liking Fernandes more and more. He's a down to earth guy despite all his wealth and success - the opposite of an Al Fayed.

 

I too really like tony. He seems to be the perfect owner for us, along with the Mittals' backing!