| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... 09:11 - May 17 with 9311 views | YorkRanger |
Doomed Rangers have only themselves to blame for failing to play fair
Joey BARTON, the captain of Queens Park Rangers, has been involved in a typically entertaining Twitter spat.
Joey is as energetic and combative on social media sites as he is on the pitch. Would that one or two other of his utterly useless teammates had showed the same level of involvement this season, QPR would surely not have been relegated and thus facing financial ruin.
Only two teams from the Premier League have seriously under-performed this season – Newcastle United and QPR, who met yesterday afternoon. A grim battle between the utterly insouciant and the entirely distrait, Barton and Jack Colback excepted. The supporters of both clubs have been seriously let down by the majority of their expensive and mercenary players.
Barton launched into a tirade against an old QPR legend, the wayward talent that was Rodney Marsh. “Let it go, mate. You peaked over 40 years ago in Division Two. You did well in the lower leagues when football was played at a walking pace,” Mr Barton observed (not entirely incorrectly, it should be noted), before describing Marsh as a “skint, washed-up player full of hatred”. Miaow, etc.
Marsh, for his part, pointed out – again, not entirely incorrectly – that when he was Barton’s age he had played for England and captained Manchester City. We should probably let the two of them slug it out — the former player who was always (to my mind) rather overrated, and the current player who has been underrated as a consequence of a somewhat querulous attitude.
I would rather have Barton in my team than Marsh. If QPR had been lucky enough to have 10 Bartons they wouldn’t be where they are now. Ten Rodney Marshes and they would probably be bankrupt already, as well as relegated.
QPR are in big trouble – and now, of course, the lawyers are involved. In the season they were promoted from the Championship they spent much, much more money on wages and transfer fees than their budget allowed under the Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.
In other words, they cheated. And they cheated by an enormous amount of money. Subjected to a fine of £58m by the Football League upon their promotion the club decided that the best course of action would be to ignore it entirely. So they cheated, and then they defaulted, banking on the certainty that they would not be relegated the following season and therefore would be able to evade the fine. Bad, bad call. The options open to the Football League are many and varied and involve the possibility of kicking the club out of the league entirely. But the signals from the Football League have been conciliatory of late, with demotion or defenestration all but ruled out. This, I think, is a grave mistake. If the Financial Fair Play rules are not enforced with stringency then we might as well get rid of them. It is hard to imagine a greater infraction of the spirit and letter of the law – and QPR should pay heavily for it. Why should the majority of clubs bother adhering to strict budgets when QPR sail gaily through, incurring debts of more than £60m?
You can argue that the FFP stuff is an absurdity if you like. If some rich foreigner wants to waste his entire fortune on a middling west London yo-yo club, as Tony Fernandez is doing at QPR, then why should he not be allowed to do so?
Better that, you might argue, than the other sort of approach – which is to transfer money out of the club and into the rich businessman’s various other accounts and interests, as happened at poor old Blackpool. Sure, I see that. But owners have a habit of growing weary of forever forking out more and more money – and then, exhausted, skedaddling – leaving behind them an unholy mess. Financial Fair Play was one method of combatting the destruction of a football club by an overweening, over-ambitious owner, as well as ensuring that clubs strove for success in a sustainable manner. Mr Fernandez wrote off QPR’s debts of £60m, but for how much longer will he be happy to do that? And what happens when he bails out?
My guess is that QPR will just about get by, in the very short term. One assumes they will flog the talented striker Charlie Austin for somewhere in the region of ten to fifteen million quid. That will help them pay the first instalment of that whopping fine, and it may keep the Football League happy for a while. They also have parachute payments to help them along. But on current predictions, next season Rangers are looking at a loss of somewhere in the region of £100m – which, again, will be a tad above the approved limit under the FFP rules of £8m. That would mean a transfer embargo and a fine, at the very least.
It would be unfair on the other Championship clubs if Rangers were not hit with a transfer embargo immediately, until that fine is completely paid off. Otherwise, what is the point of Financial Fair Play? |  | | |  |
| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 19:28 - May 18 with 2957 views | MedwayR |
It winds me up that we get called cheats over FFP, assuming the Football League back down or lose the legal battle will the same people be willing to apologise for calling us cheats, after all we'd have been abiding by European laws whereas the Football League and the other clubs would have been trying to enforce things against those laws in which case surely they are the cheats. |  |
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| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 20:46 - May 18 with 2882 views | TGRRRSSS |
ONe way for us to go if we go to court over it would be to start demanding a full investigation into losses accrued by all football clubs under the FLs jurisdiction.
For example Blackburn, Leeds, and Notts Forest who I believe have all fallen foul in the last couple of years, I believe the potential legal minefield and litigation would be quite something for the Lawyers.
They will no doubt be salivating at the prospect - and about £2,000 per hour I should imagine for the type we'd employ |  | | |
| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 10:31 - May 19 with 2788 views | LowerloftLad |
Take away the attitude of a man who has not had a good shag in 5 Years. its a long article with some very common facts and a man very stroppy QPR made the premier league |  |
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| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 10:37 - May 19 with 2783 views | QPunkR |
Two fundamental things he gets wrong that blow all his bullshit 'facts' out of the water straight away. He can't spell our owner's name. And he thinks cúnty Barton is better than Rodney.
Prosecution rests, m'lud. |  |
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| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 10:52 - May 19 with 2747 views | zicoshoops |
AGENT:
Ian Holloway (QPR Sleeper)
MISSION:
Get Millwall out of the Championship.
RESULT:
Mission accomplished.
A slightly bitter Mr Liddle and his mates, must have thought Ollie was talking about getting them out of the Championship into the Premiership.
'Ave it. |  | | |
| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 11:16 - May 19 with 2679 views | TheBlob |
Every so often you get nonentities who try to forge a career out of being unpopular.Liddle is a serial upsetter who wouldn't get any attention otherwise.Let's hope he follows what happened to WT Stead* who perished on the Titanic.
* the original wind up merchant....
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oH21AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT8&lpg=PT8&dq=most+hated+br |  |
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| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 19:44 - May 19 with 2554 views | longbottom |
Another Knob who has not realised that pretending to support Millwall isn't cool anymore. Danny Baker is another. |  | | |
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| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 12:21 - May 20 with 2475 views | TheChef |
| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 15:33 - May 18 by Chicken |
I think it's a good piece. |
Hi Rod! |  |
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| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 13:01 - May 20 with 2443 views | 18StoneOfHoop |
Touch of the beardy Hipster Ian Watkins popup Shoreditch bowl of cereals about this c-list celeb Wall-ee fan called Scroobius Pip:
Anyway how's the list standing of Our Favourite Journo's at the moment?
I make it
=1)How many points will we be deducted again Shaun? 
=1)The non-thinking lobotomised man's Jon Gaunt. Oooh he looks so genuine proleterian hard and 'dishabille' and 'distrait'.. get her! 
=1) Sexy overbite Dick Menace. Isleworth born Naarwich through and through.  |  |
| 'I'm 18 with a bullet.Got my finger on the trigger,I'm gonna pull it.."
Love,Peace and Fook Chelski!
More like 20StoneOfHoop now.
Let's face it I'm not getting any thinner.
Pass the cake and pies please. |
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| Brace yourselves - Our old friend Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today.... on 13:12 - May 20 with 2425 views | YorkRanger |
Really interesting piece....
I have to say if anyone hacked my LFW account (clearly hugely unlikely), I would be very quick to make it clear to all and sundry that the views being expressed were not mine and I would then contact Clive to close my login and reinvent myself, perhaps as YorkR..... | | | |
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