Helguson Injury Wait...Ecclestone Hope Briatore Remains in Football...The "Fit and Proper" Test and Briatore...Rowan Vine Q&A on Football Boot

-
- The cutting-edge QPR Report Messageboard: Visit - even post on - the combination quasi-blog and messageboard for additional up-to-the-minute news about QPR, combined with QPR nostalgia and occasionally, general football items. Links to items on other QPR boards, always welcome! --- - QPR REPORT Available on TWITTER!


Helguson Injury Update
Watford Observer "...[Watford] will have to wait until tomorrow morning to see if they will face Hornets legend Heidar Helguson.
- Mackay described the striker's chances of making the Championship clash as "touch and go" after the striker pulled his calf during his second 'debut' last weekend.
- Helguson left Vicarage Road on crutches on Saturday and despite having an MRI scan on Wednesday, Mackay says he will have to wait until tomorrow morning's fitness test to see if the 32-year-old will be able to play.
- Mackay said: "The scan showed that we need to look and see how he reacts to intense physio over the next two days before we make a decision. It will be Saturday before we make a decision on that.
- "He has had knocks and bruises throughout his career but he is a typical Viking – he just gets on with it..." Watford Observer


- RIP: Ex-Peterborough's Terry Bly

- Nice article from a QPR Fan, Nick Gordon Brown ("ngb_qpr") on the Chelsea QPR game "History, Hernias and Sibling Rivalry"
"The morning after the night before, and I’m still buzzing..."


- Next for QPR: Barnsley at Loftus Road (Barnsley have just signed three defenders!) - Previews & Managerial Comments


- The two Managers: Martin Allen Recalls Gary Waddock when they were both QPR Players

- Ben Kosky/Kilburn Times: "Time to Go, Flavio"

- Flashback: QPR vs AKUTRS

- Sousa Considered

- Hyde United Wound Up in Court

- Renault Lose Big Sponsor (Effective Immediately) and Clash of Dates of British Grand Prix and the 2010 World Cup


- The Financial Cost to Briatore from a Ban

Ecclestone on Briatore Staying in Football
Mirror - "...And Ecclestone believes it would be wrong for him to be deemed not "fit and proper" to run Queens Park Rangers. "I'd very much hope that Flavio does not get kicked out of football," he said..." Mirror

- Bernie Ecclestone Comments on Flavio Briatore


David Conn/The Guardian - Notts County case shows limits of League's 'fit and proper person' test• Football League standard is applied retrospectively
• Those subject to test left to certify themselves

- Revelations about Russell King's involvement at Notts County have prompted concern at Football League headquarters but the League may nevertheless pass the takeover of the world's oldest professional football club as "fit and proper" at its 8 October board meeting.
- The "fit and proper persons test", which the League introduced in June 2004, does not do what many fans probably think it should. It does not bar people from owning football clubs, or being involved in senior positions, if they are unsavoury or if they have business collapses and unpaid debts behind them.
- While the League is certain to seek more information from the club about King's dealings, it is bound by the tight wording of its own test and is coming underpressure from the club to ratify the takeover.
- The League's test itemises categories which bar somebody from being a director or "holding a majority interest" in a club. King is not a director and Notts County say he has no interest in Qadbak, the investment fund of "middle eastern and European families who wish to remain anonymous". Even if he were a director or major shareholder, there is no sign that his business record would make him fall foul of the test.
- People are barred if they have a recent, unspent conviction for fraud or dishonesty; have been imprisoned for 12 months or more; or are on the sex offenders register. Anybody who is bankrupt or disqualified from a professional body or from acting as a director of a UK company is also barred. Another stipulation, that a person cannot be a football club director or major shareholder if he or she has been banned by another sport's governing body, is now to be tested for the first time in the case of the Queens Park Rangers director Flavio Briatore. The league is to study closely last week's ban applied to Briatore by the governing body of Formula One, the FIA, in the Renault Crashgate scandal.
- A person whose past is littered with business collapses and debts unpaid to creditors is allowed to be a director or majority owner of a football club, if he or she is not barred on those other grounds. The only insolvencies which count against people are those of football clubs – if they have been directors of two clubs which have collapsed into insolvency, or of the same club which has been insolvent twice.
- The Notts County takeover is now under the spotlight almost three months after its completion but the process highlights general weaknesses in the fit and proper persons test.
- First and most obviously, the test begins only after a club is taken over and the new owners have become involved in a club's business. Lord Mawhinney, the League's chairman, told the government this summer that he would be "happy to work with the FA and Premier League" to see how the rules could be "strengthened appropriately, including how they might be applied prospectively". The Notts County takeover will increase the pressure for that to happen. The Premier League has already committed to applying its test before, not after, deals are done.
- Secondly, football club directors declare themselves to be "fit and proper", filling the relevant forms in themselves. At Notts County the new directors – Peter Trembling, Peter Willett, Sir John Walker and Alex Clemence – are not yet registered at Companies House, which the club said yesterday was a matter only of procedure. There is no suggestion that any of those people fall into any of the categories which would bar them but being able to declare yourself to have passed a test does not seem the world's most robust application of that test.
- The other weaknesses are in the contents of the test itself. It was brought in so that football clubs, beloved community sporting institutions, could not be taken over by people with dubious records, no money and nasty plans. Yet although it is to the League's credit that it has such a test, it is a glaring omission to allow in people with a litany of business failures behind them and to bar them only if such insolvencies were at football clubs. The League also does not see or vet the plans for a club and check that real money is there.
- The four Notts County directors are understood to have certified themselves as not convicted fraudsters or people who have run two football clubs insolvent – under the League's rules that makes them fit and proper. It will be more difficult to pass those who "hold a majority interest" in Notts County, because the investors want to remain anonymous. In Switzerland, where Qadbak is administered, the law protects the identity of investors.
- The club have now said that Willett and his son Nathan are Qadbak's directors and the League is thought to have been seeking proof that they control Qadbak's decisions at the club. On that basis the League is likely to pass Notts County's ownership as fit and proper.
- The League has asked the government for help in getting behind anonymous offshore structures and the government has said it is willing to discuss it. Such powers, however, are a long way off.
- "We are very comfortable with the ownership of the club and the directors," said a spokesman for a club which, in its record-breaking 145 years, has now seen just about everything. Guardian

- Investigating Man Behind the Notts County Deal

- Flashback: The Launch of the QPR Official Site: What QPR Were Saying On Those First Few Days over a Decade ago

- Gillingham's Manager on Simeon Jackson (touted by some as QPR having an interest in)

- Stoke City Offer Apology to Blackpool's Jason Euell

- Football League Clubs Met Yesterday

- Chelsea vs QPR Match Reports


RANSACKER - Boot Room Banter with QPR’s Rowan Vine

Rowan Vine started out at Portsmouth, but failed to establish himself at Fratton park and impressed during season-long loan spells with Brentford, Colchester United and Luton Town – the latter signing him on a permanent deal before he joined Birmingham City in January 2007 for £2.5million.

However, he failed to progress at St. Andrews and joined QPR on-loan nine months later, securing a permanent move to Loftus Road before breaking his leg last year. He has since returned to action and his form is spearheading the Hoops’ promotion push.

Ransacker’s Chris Galea spoke to Vine about which boots let his feet do the talking…

Q. What boots do you wear?
A. I am wearing the Nike Tiempo Legend III at the moment.

Q. What’s the story behind you choosing the Nike Tiempo Legend III?
A. I’ve actually not long come back to them. Wearing the Nike Tiempo Legend III coincided with my best ever run of form, and maybe mistakenly I switched to Lotto Zhero Evolution boots instead. I think as a footballer it’s good to try new things, but ultimately you’re dealing with very fine margins of success and failure, so I’d always recommend that if you find the boot that you believe is the right one for you, why not stick with it?

Q. Why did you change to and from the Lotto Zhero Evolution boots?
A. When they first came out I just thought they were really comfortable. I also had a go in the lighter Nike Mercurial Vapors for a bit. As footballers there is often a lot of influence over club sponsorship deals, and obviously with the likes of Flavio Briatore at Rangers there is a strong Italian voice. That’s where the Lotto link came from and, to be fair to the boots, they ticked all the right boxes when I tried them on. However, I felt like a change a couple of week backs, so I went back to the Nike Tiempo Legend III.

Q. There are a range of different colours and styles available in football boots now, but are their any horror shows in the QPR dressing room when it comes to footwear?
A. That’s a tough one really because they all stand out these days. The black boots are pretty rare, it seems, with white, blue, yellow and even pink available now. So, it’s a pretty colourful mix and there isn’t really one in particular that I can pick out as a bad egg.

Q. You came through the ranks at Portsmouth; were you a boot boy there and if so who’s boots did you clean?
A. Yes I was a boot boy at Portsmouth and I was quite fortunate in that while I was a YTS because I was looking after another young pro, Luke Nightingale’s, boots. He didn’t complain too much because he knew how hard the job could be when you got a player who liked to make a fuss. However, I did Russell Hoult’s boots and he wasn’t very nice some times when he couldn’t kick the ball straight in them, so I got a bit of grief off him occasionally. To this day he’ll still say it was my fault but I think we both know different! Ransacker


From Winkball: QPR FANS SPEAKS ABOUT FLAVIO BRIATORE

">