Tweet
Almost 4 years ago, we were full of high spirits when Flavio announced, "we are fully aware of the history of QPR and the loyal fanbase that it has and are totally committed to bringing future success back to the club."
The truth is he lacked the commitment to actually get to know the clubs fanbase and treated many distainly with comments like "£20 pound fans" and felt that by increasing season ticket prices we should all be grateful that we had least reached the premiership. Its fair to say, when Flavio and Bernie first took over in 2007 fans felt the same way they do today. The big difference this time around is that we seem to have a genuine character who wants to do well for this football club. The fact he supports West Ham is really a side issue, but the thing he is passionate about football is a more important one. Its plainly obvious both Bernie and Flavio saw this venture as purely business and in many respects they have acheived the aim of making both a profit and helping to get us into the Premiership.
I read many question Flavio's input, but he gave the mantle to Amit to convince Neil Warnock to be part of our future plans and up to recently he was the one who paid the players wages. These players are on good money and with a sizeable squad both he and Bernie were shelling out at least a million a month. I personally think Flavio's biggest downfall was the way fans perceived him and I think with the new film about to be released it will be a real eye opener on what went on behind the scenes. He of course was impatient for success and the line of managers had to deal with well documented interference and once they took the job, they had obvious long term insecurites. Looking back to the protests of Februray 2010, I think it made Flavio realise he could no longer be at the forefront of the club and key media figure. He decided pretty quickly to work more in the background. I would imagine after having Hart and Harford in charge, it was decided to bring in the best to avoid relegation and then move on to try and win promotion the following year. It was at this point that Amit Bhatia was pivotal to the success we have now. After discussions with Gianni Paladini on who to bring in, it was Amit's job to convince Neil Warnock to manage this club. It took much discussion and persuading over a 2 month period, that the likes of Flavio would not interfere and he would have free role on the players he wanted.
It was a gamble, one that paid off. We had such a great season I am sure it took all at the club by surprise. What followed was a complete shock to many supporters, first stage was a lack of any Parade, then on the day we hear of increased season ticket prices, Amit walks and the fans realise that the upcoming season could be quite depressing. This feeling is heightened with the realisation we spend only 1.25 million on DJ CAmpbell and all the other players are frees. In effect, we spent around half a million in the summer if you include the sale of Legiterwood to Reading FC. Many astute fans would question whether the owners were holding back on spending because a sale of the club was inevitable. In hindsight, its fair to say they were right.
Before this takeover, my first experience of seeing Tony Fernandes was when he expressed an interest in buying out Gold/Sullivan at West Ham. We do not know the reason why this never really came to fruition, but I doubt it was a lack of funds. You only have to look at his 18 billion deal this summer for 200A320neo jets supplying flights to Kuala Lumpur. He has made a tremendous success of this business when you consider many other business people said it could never be done. He has been quite busy this year also taking over Bristish car comany Caterham and now he owns 66% of Queens Park Rangers Football Club.
Listening to his press conference and recent interview on QPR player it seems the next time, we will see him will be the home game against Newcastle United, as he spends much of his time in other parts of the world. In fact Amit Bhatia spends alot of his time out of the UK, but its very rare he never pitches up for a home game. Its difficult to say whether Mittals shares were ever discussed, I am inclined to think it was. I have no proof to back this up, but the fact that Tony Fernandes by his own admission "did no know Amit too well" indicates he could have tried to take full control. Looking at the people that Fernandes has brought into the club it shows he will leave the club in very good hands running the club on a day-to-day basis.
Whilst we read many negatives about Flavio and Bernie, many of which cannot be argued, they have shown how a business model can work and be made to make money. We have been the pawns in that money making success, but we cannot deny we have not enjoyed the bumpy ride to the Premiership. Without those two at the club, we would have been of little interest to Lakshmi Mittal in the first place and its extremely unlikely we would even have found ourselves in the Premiership. So whilst, many will angered by their recent actions I only have to look back at the state we were in, when they first took-over to acknowledge some gratitude.
Now what of the future? My hunch is that supporters will fully get behind "our man" like we did in the first instance with Flavio Briatore. My old gran used to say "actions speak louder than words", in this guy we might just have someone to deliver. He has brought in experienced qualified people into the boardroom,you can see he has the passion to make this work. I think it s good thing that Amit has resumed his Vice chairman status and that Mittal still holds 33% of the company, as whether we stay in the premiership or get relegated we can see a genuine guy who wants the best for the club and the fanbase. I don't think that survival is a forgone conclusion, though if the players muted are of genuine interest than we have a great chance. I will be interested to see who our first signing actually is. Some will be taken in by reports of Scott parker, Shaun Wright-Phillips and others, personally I am more sceptical. That is not to say the calibre of player will not be better than the ones we have brought in so far, I think they will be.
The manager's phone will probably be red-hot already from players agents, but I suspect the players Warnock has in mind have already been contacted. I would expect those deals to be tied up next week before the Wigan game and we might well have some last minute dealings on transfer day. We do also have a very big squad and clearly need to find these players clubs. Its obvious the likes of Clarke, Hulse, Rowlands and Cook are weeks or even days away from a move. The problem is I suspect that these players in an attempt to get promotion were on good lucrative Championship contracts and finding a club for these players is not going to be easy, it might well be many go out on loan.
All in all this has given many supporters a well deserved lift. We have never really been allowed to celebrate promotion and the summer had seen our dreams shattered after seeing other clubs bring in players we all knew Warnock wanted. I suspect in the next couple of weeks, Warnock who quite frankly had not been given the backing he deserved will now have the opportunity to prove he can indeed be a success in the Premiership. Lets hope we all give him time.
Fernandes talked of us being a raw diamond, time will tell if we have got in our own diamond geezer.
The truth is he lacked the commitment to actually get to know the clubs fanbase and treated many distainly with comments like "£20 pound fans" and felt that by increasing season ticket prices we should all be grateful that we had least reached the premiership. Its fair to say, when Flavio and Bernie first took over in 2007 fans felt the same way they do today. The big difference this time around is that we seem to have a genuine character who wants to do well for this football club. The fact he supports West Ham is really a side issue, but the thing he is passionate about football is a more important one. Its plainly obvious both Bernie and Flavio saw this venture as purely business and in many respects they have acheived the aim of making both a profit and helping to get us into the Premiership.
I read many question Flavio's input, but he gave the mantle to Amit to convince Neil Warnock to be part of our future plans and up to recently he was the one who paid the players wages. These players are on good money and with a sizeable squad both he and Bernie were shelling out at least a million a month. I personally think Flavio's biggest downfall was the way fans perceived him and I think with the new film about to be released it will be a real eye opener on what went on behind the scenes. He of course was impatient for success and the line of managers had to deal with well documented interference and once they took the job, they had obvious long term insecurites. Looking back to the protests of Februray 2010, I think it made Flavio realise he could no longer be at the forefront of the club and key media figure. He decided pretty quickly to work more in the background. I would imagine after having Hart and Harford in charge, it was decided to bring in the best to avoid relegation and then move on to try and win promotion the following year. It was at this point that Amit Bhatia was pivotal to the success we have now. After discussions with Gianni Paladini on who to bring in, it was Amit's job to convince Neil Warnock to manage this club. It took much discussion and persuading over a 2 month period, that the likes of Flavio would not interfere and he would have free role on the players he wanted.
It was a gamble, one that paid off. We had such a great season I am sure it took all at the club by surprise. What followed was a complete shock to many supporters, first stage was a lack of any Parade, then on the day we hear of increased season ticket prices, Amit walks and the fans realise that the upcoming season could be quite depressing. This feeling is heightened with the realisation we spend only 1.25 million on DJ CAmpbell and all the other players are frees. In effect, we spent around half a million in the summer if you include the sale of Legiterwood to Reading FC. Many astute fans would question whether the owners were holding back on spending because a sale of the club was inevitable. In hindsight, its fair to say they were right.
Before this takeover, my first experience of seeing Tony Fernandes was when he expressed an interest in buying out Gold/Sullivan at West Ham. We do not know the reason why this never really came to fruition, but I doubt it was a lack of funds. You only have to look at his 18 billion deal this summer for 200A320neo jets supplying flights to Kuala Lumpur. He has made a tremendous success of this business when you consider many other business people said it could never be done. He has been quite busy this year also taking over Bristish car comany Caterham and now he owns 66% of Queens Park Rangers Football Club.
Listening to his press conference and recent interview on QPR player it seems the next time, we will see him will be the home game against Newcastle United, as he spends much of his time in other parts of the world. In fact Amit Bhatia spends alot of his time out of the UK, but its very rare he never pitches up for a home game. Its difficult to say whether Mittals shares were ever discussed, I am inclined to think it was. I have no proof to back this up, but the fact that Tony Fernandes by his own admission "did no know Amit too well" indicates he could have tried to take full control. Looking at the people that Fernandes has brought into the club it shows he will leave the club in very good hands running the club on a day-to-day basis.
Whilst we read many negatives about Flavio and Bernie, many of which cannot be argued, they have shown how a business model can work and be made to make money. We have been the pawns in that money making success, but we cannot deny we have not enjoyed the bumpy ride to the Premiership. Without those two at the club, we would have been of little interest to Lakshmi Mittal in the first place and its extremely unlikely we would even have found ourselves in the Premiership. So whilst, many will angered by their recent actions I only have to look back at the state we were in, when they first took-over to acknowledge some gratitude.
Now what of the future? My hunch is that supporters will fully get behind "our man" like we did in the first instance with Flavio Briatore. My old gran used to say "actions speak louder than words", in this guy we might just have someone to deliver. He has brought in experienced qualified people into the boardroom,you can see he has the passion to make this work. I think it s good thing that Amit has resumed his Vice chairman status and that Mittal still holds 33% of the company, as whether we stay in the premiership or get relegated we can see a genuine guy who wants the best for the club and the fanbase. I don't think that survival is a forgone conclusion, though if the players muted are of genuine interest than we have a great chance. I will be interested to see who our first signing actually is. Some will be taken in by reports of Scott parker, Shaun Wright-Phillips and others, personally I am more sceptical. That is not to say the calibre of player will not be better than the ones we have brought in so far, I think they will be.
The manager's phone will probably be red-hot already from players agents, but I suspect the players Warnock has in mind have already been contacted. I would expect those deals to be tied up next week before the Wigan game and we might well have some last minute dealings on transfer day. We do also have a very big squad and clearly need to find these players clubs. Its obvious the likes of Clarke, Hulse, Rowlands and Cook are weeks or even days away from a move. The problem is I suspect that these players in an attempt to get promotion were on good lucrative Championship contracts and finding a club for these players is not going to be easy, it might well be many go out on loan.
All in all this has given many supporters a well deserved lift. We have never really been allowed to celebrate promotion and the summer had seen our dreams shattered after seeing other clubs bring in players we all knew Warnock wanted. I suspect in the next couple of weeks, Warnock who quite frankly had not been given the backing he deserved will now have the opportunity to prove he can indeed be a success in the Premiership. Lets hope we all give him time.
Fernandes talked of us being a raw diamond, time will tell if we have got in our own diamond geezer.
Comment