In an exciting development for QPR, the year-old supporters trust, QPR 1st, has announced it has purchased the club from Chris Wright.
A spokesperson for the trust said last night: “We have really radical plans for QPR, which we believe will have the backing of supporters and enable our club to go forward once more.”
The move to put the club in the hands of supporters follows successful fan buy-outs at Lincoln, Chesterfield and Bournemouth. It is believed that QPR 1st has put together a ten-year business plan, which will see the club run professionally, with ‘customer concern’ at the top of its agenda. The business plan budgets for QPR breaking even as a Second Divison club, and operating in profit in a higher division.
The move towards a wage cap is not surprising, with QPR occupying 91st position in a recent Deloitte-Touche survey, which listed wages as a percentage of the total income. Around two-thirds of clubs, headed by Manchester United in the 60% bracket, are below the 100% theoretical break-even figure. Queens Park Rangers’ 144% ratio of wages-to-income was surpassed only by Darlington.
The QPR 1st spokesperson said: “That sort of figure is totally unsustainable, and has contributed towards the financial mess that the club has been in for far too long.”
Contentiously, the QPR 1st business plan does NOT include merging with any other club, and will keep QPR at Loftus Road and see it run as a community club.
The purchase comes after QPR 1st, backed financially by fans who will now individually own a proportional share of the club, re-negotiated loans owed to Chris Wright, who in turn has agreed to restructure the debts in order for the club to be saved. QPR now joins a select band of clubs in fan ownership held in trust…
Apologies for having got anyone’s hope up. The above, sadly, is just a spoof.
Or is it?
In fact, while most parts of it are true (frighteningly, the Deloitte-Touche figures are accurate), there is no reason whatsoever why at some stage we couldn’t put out such a statement for real. In fact, we are currently in on-going dialogue with Chris Wright over the future of the club and trying to persuade him that there are alternatives even to those bids tabled so far. Our talks have proven extremely positive.
QPR 1st met with Chris Wright and David Davies late last week to discuss a number of issues. Probably the most important question on everybody’s lips at present concerns the status of bids from prospective buyers. There are a number of people who have made enquiries, ranging from the ridiculous to the potentially serious – and at least one of these has been given access to the books to assess whether they wish to proceed with a formal bid. To date, there have been only three actual offers.
The first was from McAlpines, for both Loftus Road and Twyford Avenue (not QPR itself), but was turned down. The other two offers are from Clive Taylor, with the backing of Richard Thompson; and from Andrew Ellis, whose backing is unknown. Wright stated that he didn’t think Andrew had any personal wealth to invest, had no idea who was backing him, but would be prepared to sell to him if he comes up with legitimate funds. In fact, he has entered into a verbal agreement with Andrew Ellis. Wright also confirmed that whilst Andrew Ellis had shown some proof of funds, he believed a bank would require stronger proof.
We put to Chris Wright allegations being made that it was HIS money behind Andrew Ellis. He stated categorically that no Wright family money was involved in any of the bids. David Davies mentioned that all sorts of shady characters had been enquiring about buying the club, including one declaration of interest that had arrived… on prison headed paper!
Wright told us that there was no conditions of sale at all beyond him wanting someone who would help take QPR forward. Whereas he publicly stated that he had a problem with the location aspect of the Milton Keynes bid, privately he has no such problems with Ellis on the Heathrow question – “that would be good for QPR.” That, though, doesn’t sit with the fact Chris Wright has consistently stated he “only wants what’s best for QPR”. In fact, he’s on record as saying that he won’t sell to anyone who wants to move us away from Loftus Road. David Davies said that he understood the proposed site has all sorts of planning obstacles in its way. He described it as a very, very long shot in terms of getting planning permission, as it has ‘meadow’ status, has a private school on the land, and crosses over three boroughs.
When asked if he would remain on the board if Andrew Ellis took over, Wright replied that Andrew Ellis had suggested to him that he should remain for an initial period until loans owed to him were paid off (these have been reduced by the Wasps/Twyford deal), in which case Wright would sell his stake in the club for a nominal sum.
Chris Wright also confirmed that the sale of Twyford Avenue still hasn’t quite gone through but should do in the next two weeks. There was a reiteration that at least 10% of the profit of any sell-on would go to QPR. The proposed equal three-way split is, it seems, proving difficult to agree with his commercial partner. We are funded to the end of the season, however, which has allowed the administrators to confirm ability of meeting fixtures to the Football League.
We also put to them the suggestion that whereas Wasps have consistently been quoted as being profitable, in fact they had NOT shared their full cost burden. David Davies acknowledged this might have been the case but insisted that Wasps would now be fully charged for all their hired services whilst playing at Loftus Road, use of box office staff, club shop, office space, etc. He also acknowledged that they make a year-on-year loss of half a million and breaking even is currently dependent on RFU subsidies.
Interestingly, that whereas Chris Wright gives the impression of having stepped back from QPR (several times he had to ask for confirmation of the sort of information, facts and figures you might assume he would have off pat), David Davies comes across as very efficient, and extremely knowledgeable on his subject. With a sports development background, he might well on his way to proving to be the most efficient chief executive employed to date. Not, it has to be said given the calibre of previous appointments, that’s too difficult.
All the same, lucrative friendlies against Celtic and Chelsea didn’t just drop out of the sky. And with season tickets running at record levels, clearly the club is making progress off the field. The big test will come on it, of course. But so far – and not before time – it seems that Ian Holloway’s transfer dealings are being met with more positive murmurings than negative ones.
The current thinking, as described to us by David Davies, was that QPR should be much more of a community club, concentrating on trying to attract more support from the immediate local community; and indeed shifting our scouting networks in line with this. He reiterated that there have been too few players making it through the ranks and too many on lucrative contracts; also that there were far too many professionals at the club – so this summer, administration or otherwise, there would still have seen a large cut in the playing staff, although perhaps on a smaller scale.
Perhaps the most positive piece of news to come from our meeting was confirmation that whereas we had gone into administration to protect ourselves from creditors, the sale of Peter Crouch had allowed the club to satisfy PAYE, who were the last remaining creditors in a position to wind us up. The only debts QPR owe now are to Chris Wright.
All of which begs the question, with the first roots of recovery starting to show for QPR and with funding now assured for the whole of the season, is it really the right time to sell at all?
If you have a view or a comment on any of the above issues, why not send them to info@qpr1st.co.uk