The takeover of Queens Park Rangers by a consortium of friends from the world of Formula One looks to be a step closer today

In a tragic week for the club it would be nice to finish on a piece of good news before we embark on the Southampton game and a celebration of Ray Jones on Saturday.

According to The Times today that good news could be announced later today with the protracted takeover of the club now all but finalised. Despite initially denying his involvement in any deal F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone has now admitted he is involved in a consortium led by Renault Chief Flavio Briatore. It is our understanding that Ecclestone, with a personal fortune of £2.2billion at the last count, would be the majority shareholder should the deal go through.

Ecclestone told The Business: "Briatore would like me to join him. I am not sure what I am going to do at the moment. It depends how much it is. If it is sensible money then maybe yes, why not.

"I am looking at it. It would be me personally - nothing do with the trusts. They could never get involved in this sort of thing - it would be more a hobby. It's a lot smaller than Arsenal. It can only go up, it can't go down because it is just about the bottom of everything."

Last weekend we reported that Briatore told a group of journalists at the Turkish Grand Prix: "We have a bunch of friends together. We've been talking for the past month but I've no idea where we are. QPR are talking to a lot of people."

The consortium's first job would be to clear the club's mounting debts with £10m owed to the ABC corporation, £7m to the current board and a variety of other bills and debts owed to creditors, principally the Inland Revenue. That, and the purchase of the club, is likely to set the group back around £25m which is small change now Ecclestone is involved.

John Gregory would be given money to spend in January but with the QPR squad struggling early on this season and Simon Walton breaking his leg in pre season he'll be hoping for a boost before the transfer window closes tomorrow night and Rangers are already in advanced talks with Mikele Leigertwood at Sheff Utd ahead of a potential £800k transfer this week if the deal goes through in time.

Sadly this has been fraught with complications throughout the summer, and at one stage after the Leyton Orient cup match it looked like the whole thing would be off. Despite the cool public attitude of both Briatore and Ecclestone to the deal it seems we're now very much in the end game and we only hope this deal is tied up before the end of the month when another load of 'overdue' notices will no doubt land on Paladini's desk.

Here at LFW we're now firmly in the "believe it when I see it" camp with a number of people claiming the deal has already been done while Briatore and Ecclestone remain cool on the link. We only hope the takeover does go through and we are able to get onto a sound financial footing as soon as possible.

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