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- Frank Clarke Turns 71
- QPR REPORT MESSAGEBOARD
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- Ex-QPR Director and Legal Counsel, Nick De Marco on Papiss Cisse and Wonga
- Ex-QPR Steve Yates Gets a Job at Bristol Rovers
- The Economist - A Villain's Guide to Football
Flashback - Nine Years Ago today...Here comes Gianni and co!
Mihir Bose -Daily Telegraph July 15, 2004 - Foreign investors step in to keep QPR in business
Queens Park Rangers are being rescued by a Monaco-based company of unnamed Italian and French investors who are putting in money to make sure the west London club survive.
In a series of dramatic recent developments at the club, who came out of administration only two years ago, the chairman, chief executive, and one other director have resigned and a new board have taken over.
The accounts for the season just concluded, in which QPR won promotion to the newly named Coca-Cola Championship, are not yet available. The club have only just finished preparing audited accounts for the year to May 2003, which covers the 2002-2003 season. However, these accounts have some information on the latest cash crisis. The Daily Telegraph has seen a copy and in it the directors confess that if new money is not made available the club would have to be wound up.
The directors' report says: "The directors have reviewed the group's budget for the current year and outline projections for the subsequent year including cash flows and forecasts of headroom available against current borrowing facilities, together with other likely sources of cash generation.
"Following this review, the directors have formed a judgment that, at the time of approval of the financial statements, the group does not have sufficient resources to continue operating in the foreseeable future without raising additional working capital. For this reason, the directors are actively seeking to raise further capital to meet the shortfall."
QPR were a casualty of the football recession even before the collapse of ITV Digital but their main problem is that they were never properly rescued. They went into administration with debts of £10 million and instead of coming out with no debts, as clubs that go into administration seek to do, came out with a long-term loan of £10 million. This is to a Panama-based company on which the club pay a crippling 10 per cent interest.
Since QPR came out of administration, the board have been seeking new money and all sorts of schemes have been floated, but none has worked.
QPR's ground-sharing with Fulham for two years was largely unsuccessful. Fulham paid £1 million a year as rent but QPR had to pick up the bill for all the extra match-day costs and made very little money. One source said: "It would have been much better if we had got [Mohamed] Fayed to pay us £15,000 a match to hire the ground and they met all the other bills."
Several people have been offering to find money. One of them, Tim Krause, an American who owns the United States team Milwaukee Wave, had various discussions with the club in the last few years. Bill Power, who is the new QPR chairman and provided £200,000 as a loan for the club, said: "In the end we found he was acting as an agent and it was not his own money he was investing. Why use an agent to find money when we can do it ourselves?"
It was a failure to find investors and disagreements about the way the club was run, leading to the horrendous cash situation, that forced the three directors to go: David Davies, the chief executive who was paid a salary of £135,000, Ross Jones, the chairman of the plc, and Nick Blackburn, the chairman of the football club.
The Monaco-based investors were introduced to the club by Gianni Paladini, the husband of Olga Paladini, who, through Moorbound Ltd, is a major shareholder with 22 per cent.
The new investors will buy new shares that QPR are issuing. This will give them 29.9 per cent of the club. Since they are buying new shares and not shares from another director, it will mean the £1.8 million they are investing will go directly into the club.
Chris Wright, the former owner with 14 million shares, and Moorbound with 18 million shares, will remain the other main shareholders.
Although the latest available accounts are a year out of date, they give an indication of QPR's predicament. The accounts show that in the 2002-03 season, while income rose from £5.6 million to £7.3 million, the loss increased 10 times from £413,000 to £4.3 million.
The accounts for the season just gone are expected to be much worse. But by the time they are revealed to the world the Monaco-based Italian-French alliance will be on board. The deal is expected to be done in the next few days.
Power would not disclose who they are but said: "They are football fans."
- Times of Israel - A soccer stalwart finds Jewish life pitch perfect
Before the Maccabiah, Scott Shulton was relatively uninvolved in London’s community. Now he’s a coach and mentor to hundreds of Jewish students
By AARON KALMAN July 15, 2013, 11:16
Four years ago, after weeks of pleas, Scott Shulton succumbed to pressure from a number of friends and agreed to join England’s soccer team at the Maccabiah Games, a mere 11 days before the event started. That decision, he recalls, “changed my life.”
Participation in the Maccabiah marked the start of a special Jewish journey, in which Shulton went from being a relatively uninvolved member of London’s Jewish community to heading the school soccer program for Maccabi Great Britain and coaching hundreds of Jewish schoolchildren per week. In July he’ll participate in his second Maccabiah, this time as manager of England’s junior team.
The 23-year-old Shulton grew up in London’s Jewish schools, but dedicated his life to becoming a professional ball player. As a result, he told The Times of Israel in a recent interview, he “was never involved in the Jewish stuff outside of school. I had four or five practices a week. I didn’t go on tour [to Israel], because I couldn’t miss practice.” First in Watford FC’s children’s department and later, as a member of Wycombe Wanderers’ youth squad, “I was always training.”
Before the 2009 Games, he was in the midst of contract talks with a number of professional teams, and refused initial requests to join the Jewish team from Great Britain. However, when one of the squad’s members injured himself weeks before the tournament, “I ended up saying ‘Yes’ to something I never imagined happening.”
The Maccabiah “changed my life on its Jewish side,” he says. “To be able to go to Israel for a football tournament couldn’t have been more perfect.”
During the tournament, “I was so focused on what I needed as a player, I didn’t really have time for much else. I enjoyed the trips and sights, but to me it was all about the next match,” Shulton recalls his experience, and is still frustrated that the team ended up losing the finals to Argentina, in penalties. The plan for his upcoming trip to Israel, he says, is “to take a step back and enjoy being in Israel. Admire the country.”
Four years after that first Israel and Maccabiah experience, Shulton still enjoys playing the game, but dedicates most of his time to teaching it. Not long ago he joined the coaching staff of Queens Park Rangers (QPR), one of London’s oldest and most prestigious clubs. In addition, he’s been coaching England’s junior Maccabiah team — which he led to the gold in Vienna, at the 2011 European Maccabi Games.
“Maccabi GB contacted me about working with them. Two-and-a-half years on, I’m still there,” he describes how he moved from being a professional athlete to a professional Jewish educator, coach, and mentor. “Four years ago, I would have said ‘No, no chance.’ But since that call, I’ve worked in four schools … teaching almost 600 kids a week about skills, coordination, game planning.”
Shulton says that even when he was less involved, being part of the Jewish community in London was a given. “Being able to give back to the community is great.”
On Sunday, a plane with dozens of British-Jewish athletes, including Shulton’s team, landed at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport. He has high expectations of the 2013 Maccabiah, both on and off the pitch.
Cautious and respectful of the other teams, the coach believes his team will make it through the first stage and into the knockout rounds. As most of the players on the squad played together with him in Vienna, he states the goal is to “continue to win matches. We’ve proven we can do it.” However, he warns, in knockout stages with everything dependent on one game, “the best teams don’t necessarily win.”
Besides sports, Shulton says, the Maccabiah is about “feeling a connection that is worldwide” with other people. Getting to know other coaches and meeting new faces over a cold beer at the end of the day are on his to-do list for the Games.
At the last Maccabiah, he says, “I made good friends I’ve stayed in contact with — from the US, Israel, Australia and other places. I’m looking forward to seeing them and talking to them again.”
www.timesofisrael.com/a-soccer-stalwart-finds-jewish-life-pitch-perfect/
Shaun Wright-Phillips...Surrey Today - Former Chelsea and England footballer to appear at court today
Monday, July 15, 2013
Former Chelsea and England footballer Shaun Wright-Phillips is due to appear at Redhill Magistrates' Court today.
The 31-year-old Queens Park Rangers star, who lives in Shere Road, West Horsley, Leatherhead, faces one charge of keeping a motor vehicle which does not meet insurance requirements.
Wright-Phillips, who is the adopted son of former England international and Arsenal legend Ian Wright and half brother of fellow professional footballer Bradley Wright-Phillips, is alleged to have been the person in whose name a vehicle was registered under the Vehicle Excise and
Registration Act 1994 when it did not meet the insurance requirements of section 144A of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
It is alleged to have happened in Leatherhead on February 2 this year.
Born in Greenwich, Wright-Phillips made 153 appearances for Manchester City between 1999 and 2005, scoring 26 goals.
The winger moved to Chelsea for £21million where he scored 4 goals in 81 games. In 2008 he rejoined Manchester City and scored 9 goals in 64 appearances.
He is now playing at Queens Park Rangers and since 2011 has scored once in 52 games.
He got his first England cap as a substitute in 2004 against Ukraine and went on to represent England a further 35 times, scoring 6 goals.
www.dorkingandleatherheadadvertiser.co.uk/Chelsea-England-footballer-appear-court-today/story-19513840-detail/story.html#ixzz2Z5uup6Ii