In attendance for QPR FC: David Davies, Chief Executive ~ Mark Devlin, Commercial & Marketing Director ~ Jim Frayling, Marketing Manager – QPR 1st: Justin Pieris, Tracy Stent, Libby Magrill, Leon Stent & William Wall
Fulham Groundshare
This was the first item on our agenda and a lengthy discussion took place about this issue. We asked David Davies if he could expand a little more than he could to us on Saturday about the details of the deal. He told us that all 4 papers have now been signed, he can’t talk about the Wasps situation and that they are going to be meeting with the local residents as regards some of their concerns i.e rubbish collecting on an increased basis, an increase in off street parking and how the use of local schools to enable fans to park cars would be of enormous help to everyone. We informed the club that we have in fact been in touch with the Mayor’s advisor and have requested a meeting with the local council reps to discuss some issues, of which car parking around the vicinity of the ground on matchdays will be one of the issues to be discussed. DD also mentioned how the residents do have genuine concerns over other issues and an increase in urinals around the area is being looked into.
Juzza asked about the council angle and David replied that the council will not give a specific angle although they have tried to allay some of the fears to both residents and fans.
Juzza then asked about exact figures regarding the deal i.e. how much will QPR FC be getting from it. David Davies replied that he couldn’t give us figures as he is under confidentiality regarding fees/figures. When we probed further he told us that the confidentiality covers the lifetime of the agreement but as Libby pointed out, when the yearly accounts are published the figures will be shown in them and so we’ll know then anyway
We then asked about budgets and put it to David that as the club had a budget at the beginning of the season, presumably the Fulham money is surplus to the budget? His reply was that they update the budget on a frequent basis, and that they have been running with two budgets recently – one with and one without the Fulham money.
We then went on to talk about streams of revenue and Mark Devlin told us that the increase in revenue will be substantial with this deal. We asked if the figure being paid will be as one lump sum and DD told us it will work as a pay as you play type of thing. The figures are not attendance related and are a set amount. Libby enquired if the figures are dependent on which division they are playing in and David confirmed that this is not the case and again reiterated that they are a set figure.
And other sources of income for the club? we enquired. The catering arrangements will be as they are currently with Wasps, though the standards will have to be improved DD informed us. Leon enquired about the standards and improvements and David told us that the contract of the current caterers is coming to an end at the end of next season. Mark Devlin commented that he has been inundated with catering offers from various firms and admitted that whilst the hospitality standards are up to scratch, the kiosks around the ground do remain a concern. He also said that there is the chance of some shared revenue as regards the advertising boards around the ground with this groundshare deal, saying that whilst 75% of the hoardings will come from the Premiership league, there would be the 25% left over to look at.
We then asked some questions about matchdays. A rather bizarre comment from David, which he had heard, about how Fulham will want the sprinklers left on the mornings of matchdays as this will help the glide of the surface as regards their flowing football! No choices have been decided yet as to which sides of the ground will be classed as the home/away ends, the football licensing authority will look into that with a number of other issues. The clubshop will have a team of merchandisers come in on each Friday evening before a Fulham ‘home’ game to bring the Fulham merchandise into the shop. This will also apply to midweek matches, though they will have the shop from the morning of each midweek ‘home’ game. The question was raised about fixtures and David Davies said that once the 2 leagues have approved the deal, which is just a technicality, a lot of the fixture dates will be driven by tv, and cup games. When it comes to the cup competitions, should we be drawn against one another, then the first drawn team would be the ‘home’ side. David also confirmed that if we were both drawn together in a cup match, and tv didn’t want the match/s, QPR, as landlords, would get priority over the ground as we’re owners.
We asked about the structure of LR and David Davies replied that the Wasps stuff will come out. Basically if Fulham want to bring some memorabilia into the stadium with them, such as seat covers, directors lounges inside the stadium to have some Fulham stuff in there, then fine, just so long as it goes back after. And will they have the provision for shutting South Africa road on matchdays? DD informed us that that would be a council thing.
Bid Updates
After talking about the Fulham groundshare deal for almost an hour, we drew the subject to a close and went onto talk about any current bids for the club. David Davies informed us that there are 2. Brian Melzack met with Chris Wright last week and his consortium have been asked to confirm notification of the details of the bid in a formal document. Mark Devlin commented that there will be no more lock out’s. Not for anyone.
David Davies touched on the Maurice Fitzgerald/Harold Winton bid, the second one, and confirmed, as per his statement on the offish site, that they had met with Chris Wright on Friday, it was a cordial meeting, and they are working towards a formal offer.
Mark Devlin beat us to it and mentioned how he had seen Jbee’s posting on the .org board asking if David Davies had talked/met with Ron Noades since last Friday and thus asked Mr Davies the question for us! David Davies’s reply was no and he then touched on the subject of how Griffin Park does not have planning permission at the moment.
Back to the current bids. The question was asked of David Davies if both the bids would be sufficient to take the club forward for the future i.e. would the club be at risk? He replied that he could not possibly comment until he gets confirmation of various considerations and conditions as regards details. Obviously, skills and stability are a consideration. We asked about business plans and if the bidders have submitted any to the administrators. DD informed us that the concept of business plans are extremely complex, even things like PFA fees have to be taken into consideration.
Leon then asked the question if all bids so far have been for both the remaining assets of Loftus Road Plc i.e. the club and the ground, explaining that when we spoke to one of the administrators last April he informed us that technically the club and the ground could be sold as separate entities. David Davies responded that as far as he was aware, the only bid which would have been separate was the Brentford/Noades one which was for the ground. He then went on to explain that technically the sale of the two separate assets could be done but he doesn’t believe that Chris Wright would do that. He also said that the sale of the ground is an asset and an egm would be required. The same again would apply if the plc were to be wound up. Shareholders would have to be informed, as would the takeover panel, and then the whole process of an egm, planning permission etc would have to take place.
We were ready to bring the subject to an end when David Davies told us he had a question for us and then went on to ask us about our bid for the club! We were rather surprised, pleasantly so, and Juzza went on to explain about the Bees United situation and how we’d been rather unhappy with the way we had been approached completely out of the blue near enough on the eve of the Brentford fans’ public meeting. We have been in touch with Bees United and told them we do not have a bid in – if we wanted to, the easiest route for us would have been to take-up Ron Noades and Bees United’s offer. We however, would never do anything that we felt would jeopardise the future of the club and turned them down. Any such deals anyway would have to go to not only our members, but also all QPR fans for approval. Juzza also said the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.
However, we will be setting up a meeting with them, hopefully at Supporters Direct headquarters, to have a discussion with them.
We also touched briefly on the Ron Noades draft press release that he sent us and which we subsequently published as we believe the meddling with QPR’s affairs and machinations of our neighbours should be disclosed to the full QPR fanbase.’ We hope that Ron Noades and the BFC board, present and future, have got the message loud and clear .
Administration
We then touched on the subject of administration with the figures of £235,000 up to September 2001, with a further £15,000 up to the end of the year having been paid to them. January was apparently slightly dearer. We asked him that if the figures being paid to them are now being reduced can we not come out of administration? He replied that if we could sell players then we probably could. However the feeling is is that it’s probably too early to do so. He said that if someone came in and offered £3.3m then it would more than likely go to the courts and the order would be lifted. The feeling is that Chris Wright is looking for a more structured outlook. On the subject of Chris Wright, it would appear that he is considering dropping some of the debt, but when we pressed David Davies for any likely amount he couldn’t say.
We asked about the Tax amount owed and David estimated it to be around £0.5m. When Juzza made the point that we thought the sale of Peter Crouch had helped to pay the tax debt, David replied that it did at the time but the figures are adding up. The pre-admin debt is still owed though it’s not huge.
Whilst talking about figures, we then briefly touched on contracts and performance related pay. William asked about players contracts and if going into administration had not been an opportunity to look at terminating some of the more expensive player contracts, DD pointed out that this was not possible as these contracts were protected. In David’s opinion, he believes that players contracts should not differ from those of non playing staff and other industries with regard to redundancies and terminations.
And one final thing we mentioned before we went onto other matters was the Weareqpr plc. We asked if there were any involvement from the club as regards this and David confirmed that there wasn’t, it was solely down to the Winton brothers but naturally he supports it.
Other matters
We then spent the last part of the meeting talking of other matters. First up was the subject of our mooted focus groups/working parties, of which would be based upon smaller, professional groups with fans who have a range of different skills and expertise who would be willing to bring this expertise to the club’s disposal. Mark Devlin informed us that the Liaison group meets every 6 weeks and they cover a lot of thoughts. The concept of smaller, professional groups with specific skills in one area offering to bring this expertise into operation as regards wider, deeper issues is something to look into and will be taken up.
We touched back onto the catering issue and remarked that this is one area where a professional working group could come into its own. The catering manager of the firm the club uses has indicated he would like to speak with supporter organisations and David Davies made the suggestion of arranging some dates with him for a few from all organisations to attend.
We then spoke about the subject of fans websites, and Tracy read out an email she had received from the QPR 1st member who had started to build a website for the QPR Ladies. He had withdrawn his help due to, what he viewed (as did Tracy), as the unhelpful attitude of the club. Jim Frayling explained that as regards the QPR Ladies they wanted to keep the section on the official site and they couldn’t endorse a different one. He said that if the fan in question, who lives in the States, wanted to help them with the section on the official site, then there would have been room to manoeuvre.
A discussion then took place about unofficial sites with Jim saying that he does support them and has a vision of the unofficial site running under the same infrastructure as the official site but with individual editorial control and independance, this is not something that is possible currently but is an idea that is being actively looked into. Libby explained that when fans build and maintain their own sites, they do it out of love. Jim did not dispute this but said that what they could not endorse are commercial sites which make money out of QPR. Jim insisted that he wanted to work with fans who have their own sites and one thing they are currently looking at working towards with fans is video capability (at home matches). He also mentioned the football aid match in the Spring where help with videoing etc will be needed.
The subject of safety and racism was raised, particularly following a couple of disturbing emails which came into our info@ address. David Davies informed us that the club do take this issue very seriously as it is a criminal offence. The police are informed of any examples at Loftus Road and he also suggested that perhaps stewards are not having instances brought to their attention. A discussion about ineffective stewarding at Loftus Road took place and we then spoke a little of community schemes and if the club are working with local groups. Mark Devlin confirmed that they are working hard to talk with various local groups and we explained a little how the encouragement of local/ethnics groups to come along to LR is an important part of the trust, as indeed it is with all supporters trusts. We asked if they work with Kick it Out and Mark confirmed that they do and they have also been talking to Charlton and Millwall as regards their community schemes.
Juzza then mentioned how Tracy is going to an anti discrimination conference on Friday at Sheffield (FURD – Football Unites Racism Divides).
We then talked of the calendar venture and what a success it had been. Libby explained that the next step is for us to take a look at samples of the photos taken, decide on which ones to use, and to perhaps have some printed to raise funds (a split between all 3 parties involved). Perhaps some limited editions, signed prints etc. Mark Devlin spoke of the clubshop and of how because of us being in administration the ordering of merchandise has been limited this season, although takings have been up. We fully understood and agreed that any prints will have to be ordered and that there will be limited amounts.
Jim gave us a break down of all expenditure and outgoings regarding the proceeds of the calendars and the final amount came to around £900 each, of which our proceeds will be going into our ‘fighting fund’ account.
The kits for next season were mentioned. Mark Devlin explained that the away kit should be available from 3rd June. the club does need to conclude a deal with sponsors however, and though JD are very keen to continue talks are on going and we mentioned a little how QPR 1st might be interested in a sponsorship deal but would need to talk about the possibilities at our next committee meeting. Le Coq Sportif are still interested in being the kit manufacturers.
Back to the kits. Mark said that after consultation (though we haven’t actually seen a sample ourselves) the away shirts will be red and black halves with reverse halves on the back, black shorts and black socks. The home kit will hopefully be available from Monday 1st July. The design of it is going to the vote on the official website shortly.
By now everyone was getting tired, and with families to get back to at home, we by-passed some of the other issues that as a trust we wished to talk about and just touched briefly on our QPR 1st directory and wanted to ensure that the club understood the basis of it, of which they said they did and were receptive to the idea.
William also briefly mentioned how the press coverage of QPR in the area where he lives at Uxbridge is downright embarrassing and asked if the club could look into it. Jim replied that it is something they are aware of and are looking into it.
The date of our next meeting was set for 20th March. Our thanks to the club in accommodating us and to the poor security guard downstairs who must have thought we were there for the night!