Past Paladini Comments re New Stadium/Remaining at Loftus Road

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Caliendo re Stadium Move
The Saturday Daily Mirror ran a story entitled "QPR READY TO LEAVE LOFTUS ROAD." Written by John Cross the story read "QPR are secretly plotting to desert Loftus Road and move to a new stadium half-a-mile down the road. ... QPR director Antonio Caliendo has revealed the club has targeted a site opposite the BBC headquarters at nearby White City which would be part of one of the biggest shopping and leisure developments in Europe....Caliendo, 61, said: "It would be good one day to play in the Premier League in our new home despite the fact we love playing in Loftus Road."We are here to achieve that......"http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/tm_objectid=16800936&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=qpr-ready-to-leave-loftus-road--name_page.html

From a couple of months ago+
In a Q& A on the Official Site, Paladini asked about a stadium:
"A new 30,000 seater stadium would probably cost over £40m and the combination of what you might get for the existing site and the debt you could (safely) raise against the extra seat income doesn't look to me to be anything like enough to pay for it."
Every day I get people offering me things. Six months ago we were approached by a company that built Leyton Orient's ground. They wanted to build us a new ground next to Loftus Road. I told them to investigate it as it was not costing the club any money just to have a look. If you own a Jaguar and someone offers you a Rolls-Royce for free you'd be silly not to look. The deal would mean a 30,000 all-seater stadium, our £10 million loan would be paid off and we'd also have £5 million in cash. I think you would agree we'd be silly not to look at it. But I don't want fans to get too excited, this is just one of many offers I get everyday. I was also approached by Brian Rowe who heads up a group of people. He thinks a new ground can be built in Shepherds Bush, so I told him to have a look. Once again it isn't costing the club any money just to investigate. If something ever does materialise then we wouldn't leave Loftus Road until the new stadium was built. I'd also like to investigate the possibility of upgrading the current stadium but until we have paid off our debt we just cannot afford to do it.http://www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/QA/0,,10373,00.html


Paladini Asked about the stadium in an interview with QPR Net
QPR NET : We heard a lot about moving to a new ground in the future, is that a serious possibility? GP: Somebody came to me and said if we had a chance of building a new ground over there would you be interested? It would be foolish of me not to look at it. As long it doesn’t cost me any money then come with your plans, show me you have permission from the council and I will put it to fans. If someone had come and said I have an idea to move to Heathrow then I would have said no thanks, not interested we are happy here Personally I don’t think we’ll ever move, I hope we will be in a position one day where can rebuild one stand at a time, build on what we have and create a lovely football stadium here because this is the place to be. Like I say I don’t think we’ll move but if we do it wont be my decision anyway, any decision like that can only be made by the fans. http://qprnet.com/interviews/paladini.shtml


In A QPR 1st Interview
CTOBER 2005OCTOBER 2005 --QPR1stQPR 1st Minutes/Report from Meeting with QPR Board reps Friday 21st October 2005 In attendance: QPR Holdings Ltd Reps: Gianni Paladini (GP) Chairman; Antonio Caliendo (AC) Monaco groups’ consultant; Chris Pennington (CP) Chief financial officer QPR 1st Reps: Geoff Gibbs (GG) Treasurer; Tracy Stent (TS) Chairperson ...
AC said that when the season tickets went up they (GP and himself) were not consulted. We then asked a rather difficult question in that if AC could clarify as to the substance of the rumours we heard last year about a sale and leaseback of the ground having been mooted by him and other board members? And also would the current board consider doing a sale and leaseback of the Loftus Road ground in the future? AC said he would not respond to something like that as it was a complete non-goer. GP himself appeared to become quite agitated regarding this matter and said how he could not understand why so many people seemed to talk about the sale of the ground and insinuating that they (the new board) were a bunch of crooks. GG explained that there have been instances in the past of clubs having lost their grounds after false promises by their owners (Brighton and Maidstone were given as examples) and that supporters only wished to seek reassurances that their club would have a ground to play at in the future. Which then led to a rather interesting discussion about a potential new ground in which basically the idea is that QPR would ‘own’ a new ground on the Astroturf/park site in South Africa road, which would cost in excess of £40m to build. This would apparently be self-financing. GP stated twice that should such an idea become a reality, QPR would own the new ground, and would stay at the existing Loftus Road whilst it was being built. We stated that if such a new ground were to ever go ahead i.e. if the council were to give planning permission etc, then there would need to be a strict stipulation that QPR would remain playing at LR until the new ground would be built. GP agreed and said he would agree to this as being a written condition within any planning application. We did point out to GP that football is littered with architect’s models of new stadiums that have never happened hence our initial scepticism. ...
http://www.qpr1st.co.uk/documents/GandAminutes.doc -