LFW interview with QPR Chairman Gianni Paladini from April 2006 inbetween defeats against Watford and Reading.

Well you've been in Italy for two days and come back to find we're apparently selling our two best players. What can you tell us about the situation with Cook and Shittu?

Well firstly both Danny Shittu and Lee Cook are still under contract. Danny has a contract for three years, we chased him all over the world last season trying to get him to sign it. Lee still has a year to run on his deal as well so neither of them are going anywhere without a big offer coming in. Danny has a release clause in his deal so if that's met we wouldn't have a choice, we'd have to allow him to speak to the club but we want to keep both of them.

We have to be a little bit careful with Lee because he's out of contract next summer, we have spoken to him about signing an extension and I'd like to get him on another three year deal. He's a player I'd pay to come and see you know, I like him a lot. As far as I'm concerned he doesn't want to go anywhere else and I spoke with him again this morning. We'd like him to stay for another three years at least.

So hopefully both of them will be here in August, will Gary Waddock?

Yes Gary is going to be the manager next season.

Despite his poor record as caretaker?

Yes. The record is poor but what I like about Gary is the style of football is better. He will be judged next season when he has put his own team together and we're going to bring some internationals in here this summer I can assure you of that.

I don't believe in luck but we played well against Brighton. I said to my friend that we could beat Brighton with eight men and then Marcus Bignot ruined it for me by scoring and own goal and then that set Santos off you know, why can't I do the same? Laughs

Against Stoke, we score the penalty we win. Against Watford, if Furlong had scored that would have been 2-0, maybe that would have been too much for them to come back from. At Cardiff Nygaard hit the inside of the post, it rolled all the way along the line and missed on the other side.

So I still don't believe in luck, but, you understand what I'm saying!?

Presumably if players are coming in, players will be leaving?

Yes, sixteen are going including a few of the youngsters who we're not keeping. Reading down a handwritten list on his desk We have those out of contract players who will leave on a free, I've found a team for Ugo [Ukah] in League Two in this country, two or three have agreed to move on, some will be transfer listed… basically the squad is too big, it's too expensive, people are unhappy that are not playing. It needs to be smaller.

In two years in the Championship we've learned how important it is to be strong, to keep running. People have been saying all season that goals are the problem, we're not scoring enough goals and of course they're right, but I think our problems are in the midfield. The midfield keeps collapsing, how many times have we gone 1-0 up and not won? Like at Norwich. We need somebody to hold the midfield and protect the defence, and to break forward and support the strikers. I'm very excited about the players Gary is looking at signing this summer.

We've got Stefan Bailey as well who's doing well, and Scott Donnelly. I mean it's too early to be relying on them but they are good players and will be useful for twenty or thirty minutes here and there and build their experience.

We'll have a strong, quick, physical midfield next season.

Mr Paladini did tell me the names of the transfer targets for this summer, and some others we look set to miss out on for various reasons but obviously didn't want them in the public domain just yet.

People always say "you tell lies, you tell lies, you go back on what you said" but football is like a chess game. If you tell everybody what you're going to do you'll never get anybody. 

Mauro Milanese is out of contract, but not on your list. Does this mean we'll be seeing him again next season?

Yes I hope so, we're hoping to try and agree a deal to keep him here.

Who brought him to the club in the first place? How much did Ian Holloway actually see of him?

I brought him here, him and Nygaard. Last summer we were looking for a left back because Gino Padula had left and we were looking for a striker. We tried for Tore Andre Flo but he had a bad back so Roberto Baggio, a friend of mine, he told me he knew this player Nygaard who would do well in England but wasn't getting much a chance in Italy.

Milanese is a good player. You only have to look at how he played for Parma and for Inter, how they played the game with him in the team. Ron Atkinson tried to buy him twice when he was at Villa and then Coventry.

He helps to keep people cool on the pitch, he stays behind with Danny Shittu after training helping him with his game, Lee Cook has been a different player when he's played with him. We definitely want him to stay.

We arranged a game against Tottenham last summer for both of them to play in and Ian liked what he saw. Nygaard has been criticised but you know nine goals in twenty starts isn't bad and Mauro has been one of our best players recently. If Marc gets a good pre-season under his belt he could be a very good player for us next season.

Ian Holloway seemed reluctant to pick Milanese though, why was that?

I don't know, I never asked him. The manager is the manager, I never told Ian he had to pick him or anybody else. I felt embarrassed because he [Milanese] could have stayed in Italy, he had another offer and I'd persuaded him to come here and he wasn't playing.

He wanted to know why he had two young kids ahead of him in the team (Lloyd Dyer and Andy Taylor) and it did look like he was going to leave in January but I don't interfere with the picking of the team.

The only time I interfered with any part of Ian Holloway's job was in January when he wanted to let Gareth Ainsworth go to Millwall. I interfered with that, I said "you must be joking, he has been one of our best players, he's scored more goals than anybody else and you want him to go to Millwall?"

I said he couldn't go. But that's the only time.

What about Marcin Kus? He's on the list I notice

Yes he's going back. He's a decent defender I think but he's maybe a little fragile, he's not as good in the air as you need to be in this league. Teams seem to love knocking balls over the top of our right side whether it's Bignot or Kus over there.

Kus has everything apart from that, he's a good player. It hasn't cost us anything to have him here, it was only a loan deal and if we'd decided to keep him for next season we would have had to pay his club seventy five thousand, but we're not so we don't. We haven't paid any fees for Kus, Youssouf or Milanese but that never gets mentioned.

We are looking for a right back for next season but people have forgotten about Dominic Shimmin because he's been injured and he didn't do well when he got thrown in at the start of the season. He could be the answer, I'm confident he could do a really good job at right back next season once he's fit again.

Steve Lomas is leaving, did we pay an agent fee for him?

Yes we've paid Eric Hall thirty five thousand pounds over the course of his time with us. Ian Holloway wanted him and Langley and you ask Sheila (Marson, club secretary) how long we had to do it! It was right on the deadline day, we had maybe four and a half hours to do two deals and we did it.

And now they're both leaving! Langley's on the list as well…

We can't afford what he's asking for. He's a player I like a lot but we just can't afford the wages he's asking for.

If Holloway wanted him, why did he not put him in the team more often?

Shrugs I don't know. In the end we've stopped him playing because after another three games his wages increase and there's just no point.

Matthew Rose is staying though?

Yes, he does have a contract for next season and he's injured so it would be difficult to find a buyer for him, and Waddock likes him, he can play all across the defence and is a good player to have for cover.

Paul Furlong is staying as well, he's going to have a player/coach role for next season.

What's going on with Shabazz Baidoo?

We've made Shabazz a very good offer, an excellent offer for somebody his age but he hasn't signed it. We want him to stay but at the moment he won't talk to the club about it, everything has to go through his agent. We're working towards signing him up and I'm hopeful he will stay.

How are you going to get players who are under contract to leave - Stefan Moore for example?

Well Moore's agent tells me he may well not go anywhere, he's got a three year contract he might just stay here. I've said that's fine, I like him, he's a nice lad, I'll look after him, we'll pay, we'll feed him and pay him but there is no way he'll be happy not playing. He'll want to be away playing football somewhere. He's not a thirty three year old looking for a pay day, he wants to play. His agent has also said that he will fix him up somewhere else if we pay him a fee, I've said no I'd rather have him stay than do that.

Speaking of thirty plus year olds looking for a pay day, I want to talk about Dean Sturridge, well I don't but I suppose we better discuss it. Did Dean Sturridge go through a medical examination before signing for the club?

Well last season, at the time we were still in with a chance of making the play offs with a good run. Ian Holloway wanted Hayles from Millwall but we couldn't get him, so we had a report about Sturridge and Holloway was keen to get him signed up.

I tried to do a deal with Wolves, you know their guy Moxey, to get him on loan until the end of the season, three months.

This seemed fine but then at the last minute I got a call very early in the morning saying Dean wouldn't come on loan unless he got a deal for another year afterwards.

I spoke to Jim Smith (Sturridge's manager at Derby) and he highly recommended against it. He said if we signed him for a year he'll waste our money. Jim says you need to keep Sturridge hungry.

Holloway wanted him though, the transfer deadline was getting close so the pressure was on to get a deal done.

We spoke to Wolves' medical people about him and they said we could put him right. There was nothing major wrong with him and we'd be able to sort him out. I took him to Italy and everywhere trying to get him fit, it was no good.

So did he have a medical before he signed?

No.

How much has Dean Sturridge cost us over the last 18 months?

One hundred and eighty thousand pounds. We've made him offers to end the deal and get rid of him but he doesn't want to know. We offered him fifty thousand in January and he turned it down. His contract finishes next month, he'll be gone.

One of the things I set out to do today was to finally clear up once and for all who paid what to who for the Ian Evatt transfer. Can you tell me now how much we paid to agents in that transfer?

Yes, the confusion has come from a misunderstanding of something I said earlier this season.

Ian Holloway wanted him, he had a big board, like a pin board, in his office with the names of players he wanted on there. The first player we went for was Andy Butler at Scunthorpe but they were asking for silly money, a million pounds maybe something like that, so that was no good for us so we moved onto the second choice of Ian's which was Evatt. He was a player I knew from Derby County so there was the potential for a deal there.

We went to meet with Evatt at the Belfry hotel in the Midlands but he turned up with a different agent to the one we were expecting - a younger lad who he knew from Derby. Now the problem with this was the new man wasn't a FIFA registered agent. I believe Ian [Evatt]s now in dispute with his old agent and this guy over who is owed what but anyway.

We got conned a little bit with Evatt because people were always telling us everybody was interested in him, say four or five teams were after him so we decided to get off to Majorca and meet him on his holiday to get the deal done. In fairness Evatt was the best player at his old club, he won the player of the year award there and everything.

So Bill Power, Mel Eves and me went to Majorca and met with Ian to get the deal signed. We took Mel with us because you know, deal with who you know and he knew the player as well, I told him we couldn't pay him very much and we agreed three thousand pounds for him and seven thousand pounds for Ian's agent which is ten thousand pounds.

We then pay Ian's agent an amount for every season that Ian stays with the club. If Ian stays with us for the rest of his contract then we will have paid forty thousand pounds in total. If he leaves this summer, and he is on the list, then we won't pay any more than we have already which is ten thousand pounds.

The payments to Ian's agent stop when he leaves. This is the same in most transfers, agents fees aren't paid in one lump sum straight away it's spread out in instalments.

And after all that he's refused to pay any money to any agent. He's in dispute with them now, bummed them all out!

In the latest issue of A Kick Up The R's Cos Ataliotis asks why it needs three agents (Evatt's, Mel Eves and yourself) to conclude a deal for a defender from League One outfit Chesterfield - why did it need three of you?

Well as I say the agent Ian turned up with wasn't official. He wasn't FIFA registered. I had to give up my registration as an agent when I started work here at QPR so we needed a FIFA registered agent to come to Majorca with us and witness the transfer. You need a registered agent to witness the transfer so we took Mel because as I say you deal with the people you know best.

Evatt has been disappointing. When I first saw him play in Ibiza I was very excited, very impressed. I thought 'fantastic, this boy is going to be a good signing.' But it seems he seems to have struggled with pace of the higher league and for one reason or another things haven't worked out.

Between them, him and Doherty have cost us about seven hundred thousand pounds this season in transfer fees, wages, fees and everything and neither of them have worked out.

How close did Ramon Diaz come to being the QPR manager?

Well at the time I didn't really know Ian Holloway, I'd only been at the club for a few weeks. Caliendo represented Diaz and he attended the talks we had with Antonio about investing some money into the club. Ramon Diaz was never offered any kind of deal by this club. He came to the Ajax game with Antonio and bumped into Gino Padula there, they got on well but he was never offered a deal and it was never an issue.

The story in the Argentinean press came from Diaz himself I think as a bit of self promotion. He wanted to further his coaching experience in Europe but he was never offered a deal here.

As time went on I got to know Ian Holloway and I got on with him. The team started to play very well, we won seven games in a row of course so there was never a suggestion that he would be replaced.

The only person we've ever tried to bring in here is Jim Smith, nobody else. We wanted Jim to come in and help Gary Waddock as a Director of Football but it didn't work out.

So you haven't wanted Holloway out since day one as some have suggested?

No, absolutely not. Four days before Ian left we brought six players into the club. Marcin Kus, Sammy Youssouf, that boy from Blackburn, err, Taylor, Leon Clarke who'd never scored a goal in his life and the other boy Lowe from Wolves and the keeper.

Now would I have allowed Ian to bring in six players if I was going to get rid of him three days later?

Did you give him permission to speak to Leicester?
Yes I did. We lost to Leicester and then the morning after their chairman rang and asked me to speak to Ian and I said they could. Once you've been given permission it's your decision whether you actually go and speak to them or not. Ian spoke to them and then we lost at Leeds and I felt the players were confused about what was going on, Ian wasn't focussed on the job so I said thank you Ian, but it's time for a change.

Would you have done the same if we'd been going well? What if we'd been in the play off positions and he'd spoken to Leicester?

Absolutely, I would have done the same thing. In fact if we'd been doing well I would have been more annoyed with him for speaking to someone else.

I do like Ian, it's a crazy relationship we have and he was very good for me when I first started here, but things change.

We're going to have to pay him off now aren't we?

Hopefully not, I'm very hopeful he will have a job soon. All the signs are good that he will.

There's no danger of him just sitting and taking the money, bit of work on the television to tide him over, until his contract ends?

No. Ian loves his football, he'll want to be back in the game as soon as possible I think. 

What will the team be doing this pre-season?

One week, the 23rd to the 29th of July I think, in Sorrento. Gary and I have been in Italy this week looking at the hotel and the facilities and it looks fantastic, a really first class place. We'll be playing two games against Savoia and Cavese, just warm up matches and then we're hoping to come back and play Fulham that Sunday but that hasn't been confirmed yet.

Hopefully we'll be able to take some supporters with us to Italy, three hundred people for three hundred pounds each or something like that but there'll be more details later.

I'd like a friendly with Chelsea but I don't fancy our chances much.

Last season Millwall got rid of their manager and a lot of players and they've gone down. Watford did the same and they're in the play offs. Why are we going to do a Watford next season and not Millwall?

We can't do a Millwall next season, it would be a disaster. Millwall sold their best players and brought the wrong ones in. We want to keep our best players and I'm excited about the additions we're going to be making.

I hope we can do what Watford have done, we want to be successful of course but we're not stupid, we know it's going to be very difficult. People want glory and we're working towards that. We've just come to the end of a three year plan to get promoted and stay in this league. Now we start a new three year plan looking to get us up to the Premiership.

We have to run the club properly and we must succeed. We'd lose the money we've put in if we don't and I'm not at an age where I could come back from that.


The second part of our interview with the chairman where he reflects on events off the pitch including the ABC Loan, Gino Padula and he message board rumour mongers.

How have you ended up here then?

Well I love football you know. In Italy every father's dream is for their son to be a footballer and I kicked a few balls with napoli when I was thirteen. I wasn't too bad but I broke my knee cap when I was eighteen and that was that. I actually met my wife when I was away on a tour with Napoli's juniors.

So I've been an agent all my life, and I was living in Lanzarote a few years ago but my daughter had a child and I wanted to spend more time with the family so I moved to Britain and started looking for a football club to get involved with.

I looked at Northampton, Rotherham, Derby County, Burnley and Port Vale. QPR were the last team on the list. There was a good atmosphere here, it's a really good club. I went to the game at High Wycombe in the wind and I thought this was a club I'd like to be involved in. Initially I was only a consultant but I'm not the kind of person that can just sit around and not do anything I like to be here everyday working hard.

I know they say 'how can you love QPR when you tried to go to Port Vale' or whatever but if you have a dog, you still love that dog even if you've only had it for three years.

It's like Bill Power going to Swindon. If I'd gone to Northampton I'd have been committed to them, same with Port Vale, same with Derby but I didn't, I came to QPR so I'm a QPR man now, I love it here and I want to succeed.

What do you make of Bill Power's change in direction today?

I've just received this, can you believe this? Gianni hands over a press release from Swindon Town announcing Bill's appointment as a director at the County Ground.

If he's got the money you know he should have fought back and got me out of here. We said after what happened that it wasn't a good idea for him to be chairman any more but we didn't tell him to sell his shares. He left with a million pounds, that's good money.

It's the same for anybody else, I don't have to stay here, if somebody is happy to put in the same amount that we have then they're welcome on board. I'm not here at all costs. QPR is like a little baby and I'm just doing my best to help. We're getting more and more calls now from people asking to invest in the club and that's great, I want to get people in here from around London, people with money. If they put the same amount in as we have then they can come and sit on the board or whatever.

I'm not here at all costs.

So the idea suggested in AKUTR's that you become irritable whenever anybody else other than the Monaco groups try to take over or invest is wrong?

Yes it's wrong, I'd like to bring other investors in, we're getting a lot of calls and I say the same to everybody - I don't have to stay here, put the same money in that we've put in and come and join us.

Lets run through some of the rumours and allegations that have been made this season on message boards and in newspapers-

QPR is very strange club, the best way I can summarise it is everyone starts off wanting to be your friend. As soon as you say to them 'no I can't do this or that' they are your enemy.

These people then leave QPR with their pockets quite full, because nobody has ever left here without their money, everybody has been paid or is being paid, then they get the diarrhoea and they relieve themselves to the Evening Standard or to the message boards.

This is an unbelievable thing to do because when you leave a place, even if you're not happy, this isn't the right thing to do and these people they accuse me of things with no backing. In England it's a democratic and fair country, innocent until proven guilty.

None of the people who have a go at me have ever come up with one piece of paper or anything which says "we've got you, you've done this and there's no escape for you, you're guilty and that's it."

It's all rumour and speculation. I mean how many times this season have you heard about us going bankrupt or into liquidation? It's scandalous and it has to stop now. We're supposed to be united, we need to be together loving Queens Park Rangers.

Well lets run through a couple of them anyway - if we'd beaten Stoke at home would we have gone into administration, taken the ten point deduction and hoped we'd done enough?

No, that's rubbish. As long as I'm here there will be no administration. It would be a disaster for the club and it would be embarrassing for me personally. I'd sell the club long before it got to that stage. If we go into administration then I'd lose the money I've put into the club and I'm not at an age now where I could come back from something like that. Everybody has been paid or is about to be.

Did we bounce a cheque on Crystal Palace?

No. The other one I read was that we'd bounced a cheque on that lottery thing, the In 2 Win, for fifty pounds. I mean this is silly, there was a problem with that cheque because we entered the wrong account number but to say we don't have enough to cash a fifty pound cheque is silly.

Was there ever a situation where the training ground owners locked the players out and you had to go down there with a cheque to pay the rent?

Laughs No.

Has there been an occasion this year where the players haven't been paid or the wages have been late?

No, never. I've never failed to pay a player their wages.

Is it difficult constantly reading stuff about yourself in the papers or on the message board?

Well no, I mean I can take it but when people refer to my family and things like that that's a bit much. The message boards are very useful, I've just started to get into them a bit and it's a good resource for QPR fans. Do you know Paul Fisher? The Friday joke? That guy, he cracks me up, I can't wait for Friday's sometimes so I can hear the Friday joke. You know the boards are good like that.

I know I have everything going against me as far as the fans here are concerned. I'm Italian, I'm an old football agent, people don't know why I'm here but I am doing my best and working hard.

My door is always open, to people like you, the LSA. If anybody has a problem them I want them to come and see me. I was disappointed when Finney left the LSA, I'd like him to have stayed because he's a passionate QPR man, we need people like him watching over the club making sure it's ok.

We will be having fans forums after the trial has finished. I like to mix with people, I enjoy the company and you know I can talk forever about football. I stop and chat with the supporters outside the ground. Once the trial is out of the way we'll meet more often. 

Why have we ended up paying for the Gino Padula situation when you said you'd pay for it?

The Gino Padula problems were my fault, I hold my hands up to that and I'm sorry. Everybody makes mistakes. I would have paid for it myself but Antonio said we're all in this together and we'll all shoulder the blame. That is money going out of the club that we've put in and that's a shame but we have brought good money into the club already this summer through the sponsorship deals we've done and money we've saved on staffing.

Five years until the ABC loan expires - should we be worried yet?

It is my mission to stop that. I didn't create that situation and it's a difficult one to deal with but while I'm here it is my mission to get rid of it.

The more people who see we're doing a good job the better the chance is that they'll help us out and work with us on this. We were very close to doing a deal with the Lloyds bank but then there was all that stuff in the Evening Standard and they pulled out, didn't want to know any more.

When I took over here, the VAT man, the tax man, the creditors - none of them trusted QPR, and we've had to catch up with payments. People were queuing up for money here in September.

We have to put forward a united front and look like a secure option for people to come and help us out. We're working hard on this, Antonio is in Milan today talking to banks and potential lenders. I am confident we'll be rid of the loan within the five years. Whatever happens I'm sure we'll do it.

Later at the QPR1st AGM the trust put forward the idea of the fans trying to raise the money themselves over the next five years in return for the ground being signed over to the supporters. This ambitious plan was given support by Gianni Paladini who described it as a "fantastic idea."

After the meeting had finished I spoke to, or rather listened to, Ross Jones' take on the loan. Jones maintains that with the football league breathing down our necks the deal was a good one for QPR; "You'd really struggle to find someone who'd lend you ten million pounds at anything less than ten percent. You may be able to get eight percent but time wasn't on our side. The football league wrote to us and said we would be expelled if we didn't find the funds to come out of administration - what would you have done?

"We took out the ten million because that's what we needed to come out of administration, seven million of it went to creditors immediately. Nobody will lend you that kind of money at six or seven percent. It was a good deal for QPR at that time."

Do we even know who ABC Corporation are?

No, no idea. They're based in Panama with a Swiss bank account I think but we just don't know.

Ross Jones does though - "I know who's behind it all but I gave my word that I wouldn't reveal who it is so that's that. I'm a man of my word."

Will we be staying at Loftus Road?

Realistically yes. People come to me with ideas all the time, the last person who came in said we could build a football stadium over there Gianni gestures out of office window to the White City flats and laughs. You know just kick all those people out and build a football ground there.

Realistically we'll be here for the rest of my lifetime. If we go up to the Premiership we'll have to make improvements here, renovate the place a bit.

Why have so many staff left the club?

Well we've needed to cut costs, you don't need all the staff we had here. I mean we had six people looking after the ground at one stage, you don't need six groundsman, we have one now.

I know people say it's bad that all these QPR people leaving but Billy Rice, Phil Harris, Mike Pink - they were all offered deals but went elsewhere. People move on.

Chris Pennington is now staying, Paulo Mina struggled a little bit in England so Pennington is staying now.

The new QPR World presenter started on Saturday and our new marketing manager has started today. We'll be nicely set next season off the pitch, within the budget.

Later at the QPR 1st meeting Paladini claimed that after promotion, with the club losing money, David Davies wanted a £500k increase in his budget and Ross Jones wanted to take on nine more staff. Jones denied this saying he merely put forward a business proposal for the board to consider. Jones later said that David Davies was a "terrific Chief Executive who worked harder than anybody for this club." He says Davies had good offers to go elsewhere but wanted to stay and finish the job at Rangers.

How much money will we lose this season and next?

This season, £1.7 million. Next season I hope we can break even, maybe if we only lose two hundred or three hundred thousand pounds I'd be a happy man. The playing budget was over by about a million this season. On the strength of last season we hoped to push on and Ian wanted this player and that player and we got them for him.

We've done some very good sponsorship deals this summer - the Car Giant deal is worth about one hundred and fifty thousand pounds to us, which will work out at about seventy thousand pounds more than the Binatone deal once you take away all the free tickets and stuff we gave to Binatone.

We've almost tied up a short sponsorship deal which could be worth just as much, just for putting their name on my shorts. Can you believe that? It's like the most incredible deal of my life, all that money for a little name on the shorts. Fantastic.

We've also tied up a new four year deal with Le Coq Sportif which is worth about a million pounds to the club over four seasons. Before we were getting shirts from them for about seventeen pounds each, now we're getting them for seven. I asked why we weren't doing this before and they just said the club never asked them.

When we go to Italy in the pre-season all the players will have tailor made suits, with the club badge on so the players will really look the part for next season. That's another deal we've done.

What role is Dunga playing at the club?

I know people say where is Dunga, why is he not doing anything but at the end of the day if I ring Dunga and say I need half a million pounds he'll give it to me. He's put good money into the club which has kept us going.

You said earlier this season that the club is sailing in calmer waters financially. Do you stand by that?

Yes of course. Everybody has been paid or will be paid very shortly, we're hoping to go close to breaking even next season, we've reduced costs across the board. We're definitely heading in the right direction.

Photo: Action Images

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