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- "BBC - "Power is removed as QPR chairman Gianni Paladini has taken control at Loftus Road..." Stories and aftermath
- The Cost of Following QPR Compared to Other Premiership Clubs: QPR are the Cheapest of the London Clubs in The Premiership...Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea the most Expensive of all the Premiership clubs)
SKY - Fernandes - No panic at QPR
Chairman insists they will continue 'sensible business'
Queens Park Rangers chairman Tony Fernandes has rejected suggestions that the club are 'panic buying' in the wake of their 5-0 humbling by Swansea.
The Rs have responded to their dismal opening day defeat at Loftus Road by making moves for experienced central defenders Ricardo Carvalho and Michael Dawson and goalkeeper Julio Cesar.
Mark Hughes has been one of the busiest managers in the transfer window this summer, bringing in a host of new faces as the West London side look to avoid the relegation scrap of last term which saw them survive on the final day of the season.
But Fernandes insists that all of their dealings are undertaken with a long-term goal in mind and maintains the club will not spend more than they can afford.
But Fernandes insists that all of their dealings are undertaken with a long-term goal in mind and maintains the club will not spend more than they can afford.
Very calm
He said: "We are in discussions but QPR have got to run a sensible business. I think people out there think we are just throwing money and panic buying.
"But I think we are very calm at what we want.
"We have done some sensible business over the summer and we are not going to throw it away. We are here for the long run and we'll do things properly."
Barton
The future of controversial midfielder Joey Barton remains undecided, with the club's former captain linked with a move away from Loftus Road and facing a 12-game suspension at the start of the season.
Fernandes added: "There are many things that are happening with Joey, and it's just like anything else, it all happens in the last nine days of the transfer window.
"Nothing's confirmed and Joey's very much a QPR player at the moment. He's done us proud in the past, so we'll just wait and see what happens. Sky
STAR/Adrian Kajumba - TONY FERNANDES BACKS SPARKY SPENDING SPREE
We have done some sensible business over the summer and we are not going to throw it away
TONY FERNANDES has hit back at critics of QPR’s spending, insisting the club are not panicking.
Mark Hughes has been the busiest Premier League boss this summer, making eight new signings with more to come.
Loan
Loftus Road boss Sparky is in talks with Tottenham centre-back Michael Dawson, 28, about a £9m move and Real Madrid defender Ricardo Carvahlo, 34, over a season-long loan.
They are also chasing Inter Milan goalkeeper Julio Cesar, 32.
Most of the London club’s captures since Fernandes’ takeover last summer are senior stars on big wages with no sell-on value.
However, chairman Fernandes said: “QPR have got to run a sensible business.
“I think people out there think we are just throwing money around and panic buying.
“I am hearing all these kinds of words but I think we are very calm over what we want.
“We have done some sensible business over the summer and we are not going to throw it away.
“We are here for the long run and we’ll do things properly.” STAR
Telegraph/Thom Gibbs - QPR chairman Tony Fernandes is chasing the impossible dream
Queens Park Rangers chairman Tony Fernandes is a dreamer. It says so in his Twitter biography.
’s
right there in a sea of incorrect capital letters after “CEO of
AirAsia, Founder of Tune Group, Principal of Caterham F1 Team, Chairman
of QPR,” and “Entrepreneur”. Rather than dreaming like the rest of us
about, say, arriving for his Business Studies A-level wearing only a QPR
away shirt, or running through treacle while pursued by an angry Bernie
Ecclestone made of wasps, Fernandes’ dreams are big, bold, involve
football and paying Kieron Dyer thousands of pounds to play Angry Birds.
These dreams are increasingly difficult to differentiate from reality.
Including
loans, QPR have brought in 15 players in the year since Fernandes’
arrival. Some or all of Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Dawson, Jermain Defoe,
Julio Cesar, and Kaka are expected to arrive before Sept 1. (Ok,
perhaps not Kaka, but he would fit the profile identified by QPR’s
scouting network, which appears to be a copy of Football Manager 2008).
Planning permission is secured for an urgently needed new training
ground. Wild plans are progressing for a not-needed 45,000-capacity
stadium.
Fernandes, like Leeds United’s Peter Risdale before him,
is living the dream. It is not quite the wildly wasteful Seth Johnson
model popularised at Elland Road, given the frightening wealth of QPR’s
33 per cent-owner Lakshmi Mittal, and that Fernandes and vice-chairman
Amit Bhatia speak sensibly about the club. But actions speak louder than
words and, in football, there are few more vociferous actions than
signing an entirely new squad of ageing players in 12 months.
Loftus
Road is decrepit, but supporters are correctly concerned about the
mooted capacity for a new ground. Clubs can overachieve for sustained
periods under talented management and with an exceptional group of
players or a powerful club-wide philosophy. What is basically unheard of
is a club entirely transcending its status in the long term.
Manchester
City and Chelsea being ferociously bankrolled to glory is one thing.
Transforming a mid-level club whose traditional home is the lower half
of the Championship to one capable of attracting the same crowds as
Liverpool is simply impossible.
There is perhaps an ingrained
British suspicion of class mobility at work here, the ancestral hangover
that meekly warns that one must not aspire to be more than one is.
There is also reality informed by years of precedents. This season’s QPR
has a strong whiff of past expensive failures: the Middlesbrough team
of Ravanelli, Juninho and Emerson that were relegated from the top
flight in 1997, or the West Ham side that suffered the same fate in 2003
despite Carrick, Di Canio, Defoe and Joe Cole.
With every new
signing, there’s an increasingly noisy question from some corners of the
QPR support: where does it all end? The answer? Usually in tears.
In
a past life as a construction industry journalist, I interviewed a
Portsmouth board member about a planned move to an exciting new stadium.
That venue now resides in the netherworld of unrealised artist’s
impressions. Portsmouth are in the all-too-real netherworld that is
League One.
I asked him: “You’ve doing incredibly well at the
moment, but lots of clubs have good spells under good managers. What
happens if Harry Redknapp leaves?”
A slightly blank look. A pause
for thought. A considered reply: “That is not a part of our business
plan.” Football is not business. If it was, it would have been wound up
long ago or smaller clubs would have been swallowed up by five or six
giants like so many independent High Street retailers.
The
Portsmouth director’s lack of foresight and the culture of optimistic PR
speak around QPR excludes the possibility of failure. Fernandes is
dreaming big, and QPR supporters should be grateful for his dedication.
They would perhaps feel a little more comfortable if his club stopped
behaving like they were inside a video game. Telegraph
MAIL/Neil Ashton - Revealed: Kenny's cruel phone rant mocking fellow keeper Green over QPR defeat
Sportsmail can reveal goalkeeper Paddy Kenny's amazing voicemail rant to a member of QPR's coaching staff, attacking the decision to replace him with Robert Green.
The message was left on Sunday at 1.30am. It mocks former England keeper Green's performance during the 5-0 opening day home defeat by Swansea.
In the message, Kenny, who appears to have been celebrating Leeds’s victory over Wolves on Saturday lunchtime, says: ‘It’s Rob Green’s agent here, I just wondered, er, how you got on today. I didn’t really see the f****** score but I heard it didn’t go too well.
Phone rants: Former QPR keeper Paddy Kenny is now at Leeds United
‘But, never mind, Robbo’s a good keeper. Don’t you worry about that, he’s a good keeper.’
Kenny then hung up.
The content of the voicemail was disclosed to Sportsmail by a QPR source. It has been obtained with the full consent and knowledge of the club official concerned and was one of a number of abusive messages left by the Leeds keeper that night.
He bombarded Rangers owner Tony Fernandes and another member of QPR’s coaching staff with text messages and voicemails.
The member of Mark Hughes’ technical team was out of the country at the time and had his alarm set for 4am in order to catch a flight back to London.
He was disturbed on Saturday evening by a number of phone calls and text messages poking fun at the decision to replace him with the former England No 1.
Green, his country’s first-choice keeper for the opening game of the 2010 World Cup against the USA, had a difficult Rangers debut.
The former West Ham man failed to stop Swansea striker Michu’s speculative 25-yard effort in the eighth minute and conceded another four goals.
Kenny clearly enjoyed the moment after linking up with Warnock at Elland Road in the summer for £900,000.
QPR lodged a formal complaint with Leeds in an email sent to Elland Road on Sunday and want the FA to step in.
Kenny was asked for his version of events at the training ground on Monday and has denied any wrongdoing.
Leeds chief Warnock, preparing for Saturday’s Championship clash against Peterborough, refused to comment. The former Rangers manager, sacked last season after winning promotion to the Premier League, is conducting his own investigation.
Green is known to be furious about another keeper making fun of him Daily Mail
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- QPR Official "London Call In" with Hogan Ephraim - Update: Tony Fernandes Appearing
QPR's Spending and Transfer Policy Under The Microscope
UPDATE: QPR CHAIRMAN TONY FERNANDES TWEETS...
Tony Fernandes @tonyfernandes
-You know something I don't. Wages are less than last year 15 players already left. And we have spent a net of 1.5 ... http://m.tmi.me/vRgum
- We have a fantastic team led by our very committed manager mark. There is no panic and no overspending. Very sensible shareholders.
-You know something I don't. Wages are less than last year 15 players already left. And we have spent a net of 1.5 ... http://m.tmi.me/vRgum
- We have a fantastic team led by our very committed manager mark. There is no panic and no overspending. Very sensible shareholders.