QPR: A Tale of Two Seasons

With Premier League clubs having each played only two or three matches since the summer break, it's far too early to be describing any team's progress or prospects as a tale of two seasons - except in the case of newly-promoted Queens Park Rangers.

Until August 18th, supporters of the London club were contemplating what seemed sure to be a very difficult season ahead. A day later, the future suddenly looked much, much brighter. What a difference a day makes. So what changed? Two words: Tony Fernandes.

Promotion: pain and pleasure
West London's QPR have been absent from English football's top division for fifteen long years, so it would be reasonable to assume that promotion out of the Championship brought unalloyed joy to the club's fans. Not so. For followers of the Superhoops, the closing stages of the successful 2010-11 campaign brought anguish as well as excitement. But this was not just a case of ordinary nerves about the possibility of throwing away a commanding position at the top of the table as the season came to a conclusion.

During the month of March, news broke that QPR were accused of some irregularities around the 2009 signing of their very useful Argentinean midfielder Alejandro Faurlin. The media loves a big story and the big story was that a significant deduction of league points might result. Keyboard warriors everywhere - particularly those supporting clubs that could have had automatic promotion handed to them had the Rangers been docked points - weighed in with their accusations of cheating and their assumptions that QPR's guilt and severe punishment were a done deal. The newspapers continued to write copy laced with the same sort of assumption - that a points deduction was a strong possibility. Those QPR fans most familiar with how British tabloids operate were doubtless hopeful that this was all a mix of sensationalism, guesswork and (on the part of some other clubs' fans) wishful thinking, because, at the time these stories were circulating, the independent panel that was to sit in judgement had not even met. But all of this coverage and speculation made for a nervous last few weeks of what should have been just a wonderful season for the club and its fans. It was torture. Madness. The matter remained unresolved until the morning of the final day of the season. Although the team had done enough to clinch promotion weeks before, the torment continued, the champagne still on ice.

relief: no points deduction - and promotion clinched for QPR

Of course, QPR were promoted, but the notes of the independent FA panel, when these became available on 25th May (18 days after promotion was finally rubber stamped) made for interesting reading. In a nutshell, QPR Chairman Gianni Paladini, not acting, it seems, in a deliberately fraudulent manner, had messed up some of the paperwork needed to demonstrate that the club was not in in breach of FA rules relating to the third party ownership of players. Here is the part that many QPR fans will have found particularly alarming:

"Mr. Paladini, who was clearly mindful of the issue of third party investment... did not consider it necessary to consult with The FA and seek its approval for the course he was taking. He did not consult with the Club’s Solicitors... Instead, he took it upon himself to undertake what was a lawyer’s task of negotiating a suspension of a third party’s interest in the economic rights over a Player he was proposing to sign on behalf of the Club. Having taken the initial step of insisting upon the protection which he thought [a] Comfort Letter would provide, he then failed to take the essential further precautionary step of having the arrangement considered and approved by the Club’s lawyers and the FA...the course that he took was inadvisable and fraught with risks."

Foolishness and amateurishness on the part of Paladini were nothing new. But Rangers supporters would have been forgiven for wondering whether their club was properly equipped to survive in the higher stakes environment of the Premier League. Questions of this sort multiplied as the summer months zipped by and it became apparent that no major investment was to be made in the playing staff. Of the several players who joined QPR, only one commanded a transfer fee - D.J. Campbell, fresh from scoring 13 goals in 31 Premier League appearances as a Blackpool player. This looked like a good bit of business, with the fee reported to be under £1.5 million. The other summer signings, all free transfers, were less inspiring and all of them continue to look like something of a punt:

• Can Kieron Dyer suddenly be transformed into a player able to make it onto the pitch more than a handful of times without sustaining a serious injury?
• Will another very injury-prone recruit, former West Ham centre-half Danny Gabbidon, be able to stay fit?
• Which Jay Bothroyd have QPR signed? The prolific version of last season (20 goals in 42 games for Cardiff)? Or the less reliable version of many of his previous campaigns  (4 goals in 26 games for Wolves in 2007-08; 1 goal in 13 games for Charlton in 2004-05; 6 goals in 34 games for Perugia in 2003-04)?
• Just who is the mysterious Bruno Perone?

Despite possible misgivings about these signings, it's very likely that many QPR fans could have accepted this conservative level of spending. The club had flirted with bankruptcy and oblivion for the better part of a decade, so its wiser supporters are surely most interested in its long-term sustainability.

Paying for success
The restrained spending on players, however, was made much harder to swallow once fans realised the full extent of the ticket prices increases the club's owners were to impose.

A chap who supports Manchester United and goes by the name of Andersred writes a very good blog about football finance. He crunched the numbers and analysed the QPR ticket price rises. Looking at both season tickets and tickets for individual matches, he concluded:

"The weighted average price increase per match is probably around 75%. In one season QPR are inflicting a larger ticket price increase on their fans than the Glazers have imposed at United over six years! 

All this means the club will take close to £4m in extra revenue next season... That’s a nice extra of course, but still only 10% of the TV cash coming QPR’s way and a mere 0.02% of the combined wealth of the club’s owners....."

Many supporters were incandescent when this news broke, and stories abounded of lifelong fans refusing to renew their season tickets. Also angry was Amit Bhatia, the club's Deputy Chairman and the son-in-law Britain's richest man, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal. Both Bhatia and Mittal, whose family owns a minority stake in the club, had been on the pitch lapping up the adoration of supporters on the day promotion was clinched. Bhatia, failing to convince the club's major shareholders to keep the price rises at a sensible level, resigned over the matter.

So perhaps it was no surprise that once heavy defeat was assured in the opening fixture, a home tie against Bolton Wanderers, sections of the crowd turned their anger towards the padded seats of the directors' box. The ire was focused on the majority shareholders with whom Bhatia had come to blows - Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore of Formula 1 racing fame. As the angry chants were getting underway, Briatore scampered out of sight, seemingly not willing to listen to his numerous critics.

New optimism: the arrival of Fernandes
When the flamboyant Italian left his seat, one man who remained in the directors' box was a certain Tony Fernandes, the Malaysian principal of Formula 1's Team Lotus and the man responsible for reviving the fortunes of a previously ailing budget airline. The newspapers were full of rumours that the Asian tycoon was set to buy out Ecclestone and Briatore.

So it came to pass.

The impact of Tony Fernandes at Loftus Road can scarcely be exaggerated. Within days, he had delighted supporters by bringing down match day ticket prices and promising partial refunds to season ticket holders. He also hired in a club CEO with impressive credentials - Philip Beard, partly responsible for London's winning bid to host the Olympics and more recently the marketing genius behind the incredible success of the O2 music venue.

Then the signings started.

New faces, new future

First came the talented but temperamental midfielder Joey Barton (right) from Newcastle United. As QPR manager Neil Warnock has freely acknowledged, if Barton did not carry the baggage of his past indiscretions on and off the pitch, he would be coveted by the game's biggest clubs. Warnock, then, is gambling that he is up to the task of taming the outspoken and temperamental Barton. If the gamble comes off, QPR can surely expect transformed performances as the midfielder's commitment, energy and range of passing take effect. If it backfires, expect punch-ups and bad headlines. Let's see. Either way, the capture of Barton is surely the most exciting transfer at QPR for many years.

Within days, Barton was followed to Loftus Road by experienced defender Luke Young, who fills a position of real need at right-back. The incumbent, Bradley Orr, is a great professional, but perhaps not up to the task of dealing with the Premier League's quickest and most dangerous wide players.

On transfer deadline day, the defence was further bolstered by the arrival of a centre-half with plenty of top flight experience, as Anton Ferdinand signed from Sunderland.  Pace at the fullback positions has also been a worry. With this in mind, the addition of young Armand Traore from Arsenal  looks  useful. More exciting was the capture of the speedy and experienced winger Shaun Wright-Phillips, who had been sidelined at moneybags Manchester City.

Suddenly, a perilously thin QPR squad looks a lot stronger. The urgent need for players with real top flight credentials has been addressed.

Realistically, though, Rangers still face a challenging season. The club's supporters, however, can now look around the division with a higher degree of confidence when asking the question 'Are there three teams with weaker squads than ours?' A seventeenth place finish would be enough. The sense among Loftus Road fans now seems to be that Tony Fernandes and the Mittal family may have an interesting level of ambition for the club in the longer term. A new stadium has even been mentioned. So relegation this term would be a real setback, but the prospect of a swift return to the Championship seems a lot more distant than it did at the start of the season.

About the author:
this is my england is the pen name and digital space used by a Londoner and lifelong QPR supporter, who writes poems and short stories as well as articles about his beloved Superhoops. The this is my england blog also features original photography.