Just another 48 hours in the modern history of QPR – another takeover by another multi millionaire and the impending threat off a warts-and-all documentary on the club. LFW struggles to keep up.
There is, saved in the drafts of the LFW e-mail account, a document called ‘story plan’ where the articles for the next two or three weeks on this site are laid out in order of the day they will go live the day they will be written or subbed and a brief synopsis of what they will entail. This was last updated on Thursday and is now already completely out of date. Diary written and online on Thursday, Crawley preview for Monday and any submitted guest articles for the weekend was the original plan. That made for a nice manageable weekend where my only real task was to secure a photographer’s pass for Neil for Tuesday’s friendly. I boarded the train at Kings Cross yesterday morning apparently safe in the knowledge that Friday afternoon and Saturday morning could probably be spared for a trip north to say the latest chapter of ‘Rugby League coaching for Clueless Idiots’ played out at the KC Stadium.
So what happened next? Well the fun and games began on Thursday afternoon when the club released its third “official statement” of the summer, and the second this week. This one, in my opinion, is probably the funniest thing the official website has published since it decided that the removal of Paul Hart after five games, the appointment of Mick Harford and two of the worst QPR performances in living memory against Forest and Ipswich 18 months ago should all play second fiddle in the official site’s news feed to “win a QPR shirt signed by Jedward.” The QPR acronym can stand for many things – Quality Public Relations is clearly not one of them.
So let’s have a look at the latest offering…
On 4th March 2011 the Company (QPR Holdings Limited) announced that it was in preliminary discussions with a potential purchaser. At the time the Takeover Panel confirmed that should those discussions result in an offer being made for the Company, the offer would be subject to the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers (the Code), even if such an offer was made after 2nd April 2011, being the date on which the Company ceased to be subject to the Code, due to it being de-listed 10 years previously. The Company confirms that these discussions came to an end in March 2011.
“Since the end of these discussions, the Company has entered into preliminary discussions with a different party and can confirm that these discussions and any subsequent transaction would not be subject to the Code. Accordingly the Company confirms that it is no longer in an offer period for the purposes of the Code. We will be making no further comment at this stage.
Now I appreciate that in this corporate world such statements have to be made to keep on the right side of business law (and The Code) but let’s be honest here - never before has the tactic of keeping QPR fans on the mushroom diet (kept in the dark and fed on shit) been more evident than with that statement. Would it have been asking too much for a layman’s definition to be published with it? A normal football club may have offered up its CEO to decipher it, offer a comment on the latest situation and so on. Of course QPR don’t currently have a CEO since Ali Russell was quietly stuck back on the train to Scotland and Ishan Saksena was disgracefully removed because Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore “felt it appropriate after the way in which the FA Hearing was handled” despite the official FA report into that hearing repeatedly blaming Gianni Paladini for the whole affair.
Asking Paladini to explain in simple terms for the fans would have been an exercise in fog knitting but to just post that statement, written like that, on the club’s official website sums up how disconnected our club now is from its fanbase.
Having criticised the official site for not providing some sort of explanation or analysis of it from somebody who knows what they’re talking about LFW shall not now fall into the same trap. Colin Speller, first class traveller and MD of a business that does something with leaves, told us: “Basically it says that we are in discussions with someone new re a takeover. It isn't the party mentioned in March so they don't have to report progress in line with the Stock Market Code because these new discussions started after the end of the period in which the company was bound by the Code. Which in essence means we will learn jack until there's something really happening because they aren’t bound to tell us! It may also mean there is greater scope for shares to change hands in various ways. It would have helped if they had put the word 'subject' in where they should have, ie "...the Company ceased to be subject to the Code...".
So a takeover in the offing, and presuming the March bid was from the Mittals this one is from a new party. The mystery Russian oligarch mooted so often in recent months? Well, apparently not.
Fernandes rose to prominence in the Far East when he took on the failing Malaysian-government linked Air Asia and turned it into a successful low fares airline which is expanding at a rapid rate. Having made an almost immediate success in the aviation industry Fernandes expanded into low budget hotels, and is president of the South East Asian basketball league. His connection to Ecclestone and Briatore comes through F1 where he is the team principal for perennial grid strugglers Team Lotus. His current estimated worth is £273m.
More recently he has been involved with two attempts to purchase West Ham, who he claims to be a supporter of. The first floundered when Davids Gold and Sullivan beat him to the punch. Then following the Hammer’s relegation from the Premiership this summer he returned offering to take the club off their hands for what he described as a “competitive price.” Sullivan told the Evening Standard: “He wanted 51% of the club for two bob" but Fernandes hit back immediately saying: "It was a good offer with good money and brought in good people. Gold and Sullivan can say whatever they want. I have been a lifelong fan and would have brought good money, good ideas, new people and a new belief.”
There are two things that immediately occur to me about Tony Fernandes. Firstly, his name sounds a hell of a lot like the Steve Coogan character Tony Ferrino (catchphrase “I was such a large twat”) and I can’t quite shake the image of him strolling out onto the pitch at half time in the Bolton game with his shirt unbuttoned to his naval to give us a blast of “ordinary club, nothing to be excited by, an ordinary club, the kind of club you’ve seen a thousand times before – much of a muchness.”
Secondly - there is obviously a big chunk of this story missing. Fernandes’ net wealth at the moment is estimated at between £200m and £300m. It’s growing all the time, Air Asia is expanding as I stated a moment ago, but I doubt he literally has £300m stuffed in a big mattress in his spare room – I expect it’s tied up in property and airplanes among other things. Even if it was just all sitting there on his coffee table he doesn’t appear to have the working capital to get anywhere close to the £100m Bernie Ecclestone was demanding for QPR, never mind then subsequently invest into the team. So there is obviously something we don’t know yet – either he’s at the head of a consortium, is being sold it very cheaply by Bernie (if so, why?), is a front for a real mystery money man or something else. He doesn’t have the finance to do this alone.
Bernie Ecclestone was cagey when he spoke to the BBC saying only: “Let’s see, let’s see. I don’t really have enough time to pay the attention that should be paid to it and it needs somebody because it really is a full time job. He’s (Fernandes) been dealing with somebody from Flavio. It would have to be somebody that we thought we could rely on.”
Anyway it’s impossible to analyse this in any great detail, herald it as exactly what our club needs or tip it as a further descent into oblivion until more details emerge so I’m not going to. I will say it saddens me to see our lovely little club tossed backwards and forwards between rich men like a nubile 16-year-old girl who made a few bad choices in life and suddenly found herself the star attraction at one of Silio Berlusconi’s evenings of Bunga Bunga but that’s all for now. Message board theories, of the more plausible variety, include… Tony the Pilot has no cash! The club owes Bernie £60m. Bernie's not bothered but he certainly doesn't want the fans or the press chasing storiesof his and Flav's activities. Tony the club is yours in all but name; for an acceptance of the debt and a view on the balance that's due to me and the tangerine. Planes are never bought, they are always leased, don't buy a club, rent one, have fun with your new toy.... buy a footballer! Our club is as secure as it's always been but we might get a couple more players. - Stans Left Foot
Let’s say the club is valued at £100m. He’s paid £50m or perhaps much less if the loans are left in place. I reckon he can afford that, give us £10m to play with, repair the relationship with the Mittals, we survive, more guaranteed income everyone is a winner. What is interesting is that Bernie and Briatore have retained a stake, my guess would be is that the loans stay in place in which case his purchase price could be much lower than £50m -Baz QPR
Takeovers don't happen that quickly. You can't buy a house that quickly. If he has bought any shares, it's only a nominal amount. More likely, he is a mate being used as leverage to get the right price of Mittal. -Gobbles
On the basis that this is happening, a few observations: Fernandes personally does not have the finances to buy and fund a Premiership club. However he is owner of the Tune Group who own Air Asia & Air Asia X, Lotus F1, Tune Money, Tune Hotels and The ASEAN Basketball League. It’s entirely likely that QPR would become just another part of the Tune Group's portfolio. This means a private equity consortium of Malaysian businessmen, running QPR as a business. That means profits and sustainable growth. It doesn't mean chucking tens of millions at new players and anybody who welcomes the takeover in the belief it will see Warnock given way more leeway in the transfer Market will IMO be disappointed. -Jamie
I watched it, waiting for the QPR reference or joke to become apparent, and found it the bleakest and most boring thing I’d watched since my last visit to Oldham Athletic. That was, until I watched another of Oli White’s videos which was actually worse. Each to their own I suppose. A joke I’d missed? This Oli White character looking for more followers? Either way I was on my way into the admin system to delete the thread when I noticed that the video had actually been changed – presumably an incorrect copy and paste job in the first instance.
What now lay before me was indeed a trailer for a documentary called Four Year Plan by Ad Hoc Films who, it seems, have been following our board members around for the last four years and recording their every move. I watched it, then I watched it again, then I watched it again, and again, and again. Soon the video had been viewed 65 times and I reckon 62 of them were from me. It looks incredible. Explosive. See it for yourself.
I remember hearing about the plans for a documentary on QPR during the first season after the takeover but presumed this had been shelved when things started to go tits up. Apparently not. The access the film makers have to our board, the meetings held at the club, and all things QPR looks absolutely unprecedented. At first glance Amit Bhatia looks like he’s going to come out of it very well, Flavio Briatore less so and Gianni Paladini, well, as you would expect really. Flavio berating Paladini about the Faurlin affair “you say it’s fine, it’s fine, but now we’re up to our necks in shit” is pure gold. The film looks like it will finally settle a few debates between Paladini’s supporters among the online community, and his detractors although I expect the old excuses about “editing” to be trotted forth by those who don’t come out of it well and their hangers on.
I personally cannot wait to see it. But I’m back to the question about PR again. Why on earth would the club agree to this? They will only come out of this badly. The only thing I can presume is that Flavio et al, egos soaring, commissioned the programme when they first took over believing it would turn out to be a triumphant doc about their 18 month climb into the Premiership that would end with them holding a trophy at the front of South Africa Road and looking like immortal geniuses. A bit like when The Simpsons’ Mr Burns commissions Senor Spielbergo (Steven Spielberg’s non-union Mexican equivalent) to make a film about his life in the style of Ben Hur. Although the film will finish with a trophy, it will be Amit Bhatia holding it after three years of constant cock ups and mismanagement. I would have thought that filming would have been halted round about the time Paul Hart arrived but it seems not.
It’s an oft stated analogy on LFW that Sky One cancelled Dream Team because it was felt, by the station and the programme makers, that it was becoming too difficult to come up with realistic story lines and the show was becoming too far fetched. The story lines are flying out of QPR now at a rate even Harchester United and News International would find hard to match.
I’m out tonight. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find this article hopelessly out of date by the time I return to LFW Towers. As I type this, on the 1335 from Doncaster to Kings Cross, rumours sweep across Twitter that Gianni Paladini’s Teflon existence is over and he is leaving Loftus Road.
Separating the truth from the nonsense is so difficult these days, because at QPR they’re often the same thing.
More puzzlement in shorter forms on Twitter @loftforwords