-
-For QPR and Football Updates throughout the day, also check the QPR Report Messageboard/quasi-blog. Join in or just read the various QPR and football-only discussions!
- An invitation to QPR Supporters across the globe! Whatever country. Whatever continent. Whatever age. Whatever Perspective: Come post on the growing, truly-International, QPR and football-only QPR Report Messageboard
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Two QPR "Due Dates" For Payments Would Seem to be Coming up on the Horizon: The Replacement ABC Loan and Two Million Pounds to Anthony Caliendo
- London Masters (with QPR) Today Saturday
- Alberti Exits QPR on A Year Loan
- QPR Youth Advance to the Final in Derry
- Three Years Ago: Cook Sale Saved QPR
- "The Challenge Facing England Youngsters"
- Five Years Ago (Yesterday) Marc Nygaard Joined QPR and QPR Played Iran
- Pellicori and Agyemang in the QPR Reserve Squad
- Article re Clubs Making Money from pre-Season Friendlies
- "QPR are in Italy, taking advantage of chairman Gianni Paladini's hospitality"
- Vuvuzelas: Some Ban. Some Don't. Allowed at Wembley for Charity (Community) Shield
Disagreements at QPR?
From the Bristol Evening Post
"...As revealed in the Post in May, Warnock is keen to add the former Newcastle United man to his squad. But an anticipated bid has been delayed by disagreements behind the scenes at Loftus Road.
- Representatives of co-owners Lakshmi Mittal and Flavio Briatore have been wrangling over how best to spend money made available for transfers, in the process putting Warnock's recruitment plans on hold.
- Those disagreements have been resolved and the London club is at last ready to move for Orr. Rangers are expected to offer City around £500,000 and tempt Orr with a significant pay increase..."
Full article:
Bristol Evening Post - Bristol City to welcome back Liam Rosenior
Bristol City to welcome back Liam Rosenior
- FORMER Bristol City star Liam Rosenior has been handed a trial by the club that launched his career.
- A free agent after his contract with Reading expired at the end of last season, the fast-raiding right-back is being lined-up as a potential replacement for Bradley Orr, who is expected to join Queens Park Rangers next week.
- Rosenior, who left Ashton Gate to join Premier League Fulham in 2003, trained with City's first team squad at Failand yesterday and will feature in today's pre-season friendly against League Two Aldershot at the Recreation Ground (3pm).
- City boss Steve Coppell will then hold talks with the 24-year-old regarding a possible return to City.
- "It's a trial as such, although I know about Liam from Reading," explained Coppell, who took Rosenior from Fulham to the Madejski Stadium in August 2007.
- "Liam believes that there are
- some Premier League clubs looking at him and he needs to be playing games for fitness.
- "We are looking for players, so it is a mutually beneficial arrangement."
- Following months of speculation surrounding his future, Orr is expected to become a QPR player within the next week.
- Rangers are finally ready to table a bid for the long- serving right-back and sources inside Ashton Gate suggest City are prepared to cash in on a player who has 12 months of his contract to run and is stalling on a new deal.
- QPR boss Neil Warnock is expected to put his interest in Orr on a formal footing by making an official bid for the 27-year-old defender.
- As revealed in the Post in May, Warnock is keen to add the former Newcastle United man to his squad. But an anticipated bid has been delayed by disagreements behind the scenes at Loftus Road.
- Representatives of co-owners Lakshmi Mittal and Flavio Briatore have been wrangling over how best to spend money made available for transfers, in the process putting Warnock's recruitment plans on hold.
- Those disagreements have been resolved and the London club is at last ready to move for Orr. Rangers are expected to offer City around £500,000 and tempt Orr with a significant pay increase.
- Rosenior, who came through the youth ranks at City and helped the Robins lift the LDV Vans Trophy in 2003, boasts Premier League experience with Fulham and Reading and would be an ideal replacement should Orr leave.
- He will be deployed at right-back against Aldershot and is expected to play 45 minutes.
- Meanwhile, on-trial left- back Tom Williams will be given an opportunity to impress in today's game. The former Peterborough and Birmingham City defender, who made a brief substitute appearance in the midweek friendly at Torquay United, will start instead of Jamie McAllister.
- Coppell said: "Jamie McAllister has had a few knocks and is still not quite at what he would consider to be his full fitness.
- "We will probably leave him out at the weekend and give Tom a go. In fact, Tom will probably start at Aldershot."
- City (from): Gerken, Henderson, Rosenior, Nyatanga, T Williams, Orr, Edwards, Ball, Fontaine, McAllister, Cisse, Skuse, Elliott, Campbell-Ryce, Johson, G Williams, Sproule, Adomah, Clarkson, Jackson, Akinde. Bristol Evening Post
QPR OFFICIAL SITE - TOUR BLOG: PART FIVE
Posted on: Sat 24 Jul 2010
- I didn't think it was possible after the first three days on tour, but the weather hit new heights on Friday in Milano Marittima.
- Temperatures were touching 85 degrees - in the shade - at the R's 9.00am training session, with little or no breeze making it an extremely sweaty affair all round (even for me taking photos in the shade!).
Undeterred, the lads once again gave it absolutely everything, with the countdown to the big kick-off edging ever closer.
Making session's fun in this heat seems to be the key and Curley certainly did that, with plenty of laughs and giggles - as well as the odd accusation from H, Ledge and co. that the former Manchester City defender tended to favour his team with just about every 50/50 decision.
Kit Man Gary Coyle and Masseur Paul Roberts even got involved in the role as 'feeder' in a keep-ball game, only to be ridiculed by their peers for their poor passing!
The 90 minute session concluded with a 10 v 10 small sided game, in which Macca scored one of the best goals I've ever seen from a QPR player (albeit it in training!), smashing the ball in off the underside of the bar from fully 25-yards.
With the heat continuing to rise come lunchtime, the gaffer made it clear that no players were allowed out in the sun before 4.30pm - cue a mad rush to the beach at exactly that time, as the lads attempted to catch some rays and chill out ahead of the evening get-together at dinner.
- (Blog entry by Ian Taylor)QPR
- Earlier Tour Blog Entries
- South Africa May Have to Change Its Nickname
- Coming August 3rd: The Mascot Derby!
- QPR Season Ticket Sales: Latest Number 6,670
This is London/Stefan Szymanski - Foreign football fans are the key to really big money
- Manchester United claims a global following of more than 300 million fans, while figures in the region of 100 million are touted for Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham.
Apple has sold a mere 60 million iPhones, but has a turnover of billions while Manchester United is still a small business.
The difference is revenue per “customer”— Apple earns over £400 per iPhone sold, while Manchester United's turnover of £278 million is generating less than £1 per global fan.
This is why football may sometimes appear to be big business but in reality it is not.
The capital's big clubs also struggle to monetise their global appeal and the largest share of their income comes from fans paying at the turnstiles.
At most there are 600,000 spectators who pay to watch Arsenal at the Emirates every season, and they contribute about half of the club's total revenue.
The remaining 99.4 million supporters are not pulling their weight.
The clubs are constantly on the lookout for new ways to turn fans into money.
The paradox of football finance is that every attempt to raise more income leads to howls of protest from English supporters about the rapacity of the clubs, when in reality the clubs struggle to convert their fame into cash.
Part of this is a philosophical issue — why should a football club make money in the first place? Until the 1980s clubs were not run as businesses and were proud of it.
Near total collapse during the recession of the 1980s led to a conscious effort to run football on business-like principles, and the critics would argue they have been only too successful.
Today the big clubs are run as businesses because that's exactly how their owners want them. The English model seems unlikely to change in the near future, Red Knights notwithstanding.
The big clubs are desperate to attract more income from abroad, rather than further burdening the much put-upon English fans.
So far, broadcasting income has been the main source of overseas revenue, helping to maintain the financial gap between the Premier League, the Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga.
To make even more from these sources they would need to increase their attraction to fans overseas.
Already we have had rescheduling of games for far-eastern broadcast markets, endless pre-season overseas tours and proposals for a 39th game abroad.
A scheme that could extract just £2 per year from foreign fans would at least double the income of the bigger clubs.
Outside of the Premier League the scale of the business is even tinier.
With no major broadcast contract and localised support, these clubs are like the municipal swimming pool offering a service to the local community, albeit with one or two lifeguards on generous salaries.
The one hope for these clubs is that they might one day make it to the top table — and indeed it is by no means an impossible dream — after all, Fulham were in the fourth tier (League Two) as recently as 1997.
The gap between giants and would-be giant killers is growing, however.
Better ways to tap overseas markets will also change the focus of the clubs — some would say that has already happened.
Over the last 20 years, the European Cup has morphed into something akin to a European superleague (the Champions League).
The FA Cup is already bordering on irrelevance; who knows, maybe the domestic league might one day go the same way. Then football might become big business.
Stefan Szymanski is Professor of Economics at Cass Business School
London clubs' financial clout
Source: FAME
Club Turnover(£):staff Turnover/employee
Arsenal 196,553,000:384 £511,857
Chelsea 185,588,000:219 £847,434
Tottenham 113,012,000:286 £395,147
West Ham 76,091,000:945 £80,520
Fulham 63,145,000:741 £85,216
Charlton 23,578,000:160 £147,363
Watford 23,079,000:216 £106,847
QPR 20,196,000:73 £276,858
Crystal Palace 11,975,000:160 £74,844
Millwall 6,460,000:112 £57,679
Leyton Orient 3,364,000:127 £26,488
Barnet 2,029,697:153 £13,266 Standard
Flashback a Year: The View of Terry Venables on Pre-Season
"... You can train hard and work hard but in the end there's nothing like games to get you fit. Managers naturally say that it's not about winning or losing in pre-season games, but it is. They want to be playing tough games, not easy games that they're going to win six or seven nil just for a work out. They don't know where they stand with that. Maybe that's OK in the first week or 10 days but after that they want to be playing tough teams." Venables
- Found by a poster on qprdot.org board: Video of QPR's 1986 League Cup Quarter Final Victory at Chelsea -
- Supposed QPR Malaysian Youth Signing
- Length of QPR Player Contracts
- Various Championship Odds for 2010/11(Updated)