Olympic Stadium Deal

Posted on by QPR1st Posted in Community, QPR1st
QPR1st has been supporting the Olympic Stadium Campaign, made up of football supporter organisations, calling for openness on the deal that saw taxpayers money supporting West Ham at the former Olympic stadium. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has now said he will take control of the London Stadium in order to “renegotiate deals” and “minimise ongoing losses”.
The campaign has released this statement today:
After several years of hard work by the OS Campaign, we have achieved disclosure of information we were told could not be published, and achieved an inquiry appointed by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. That inquiry has reported this morning, detailing the ‘mismanagement of London [Olympic] Stadium finances by the previous Mayor’ (Boris Johnson): https://www.london.gov.uk/about-us/mayor-london/our-publications/independent-review-olympic-stadium
Huge credit must go to the 14 organisations that have made up this campaign, and continued to work on it whilst the story disappeared from the headlines.
This doesn’t mark the end of the campaign, but it does finally place in the public domain, the recognition of one of our central arguments.

R.I.P QPR Supporter Jason Issacs

Posted on by QPR1st Posted in Community

Our condolences goes to the family and friends of young QPR supporter Jason Issacs who died on Tuesday following an unprovoked knife attack by a group on mopeds in Northolt last Saturday.

The Metropolitan Police has announced a £20,000 reward for information that leads to the identification, arrest and prosecution of those responsible for the killing.

More information

https://news.sky.com/story/knife-crime-is-out-of-control-in-london-says-family-of-murdered-teen-11141040 

R.I.P Allan Harris

Posted on by QPR1st Posted in Community
Our sympathy goes to the family and friends of former QPR defender and assistant manager Allan Harris who has died, aged 74.
As a player Allan came to QPR in 1967 and was a member of the 67-68 side that won promotion to the First Division for the first time in the club’s history.
Harris played more than 90 games for the club before transferring to Plymouth Argyle and later Cambridge.
After his playing days he returned to QPR for more success with the club as assistant manager to Terry Venables, helping the team win promotion to the First Division and to reach an FA Cup Final.

Financial Fair Play and QPR

Posted on by QPR1st Posted in All News, Boardroom, QPR1st

QPR announced on Tuesday that that its appeal to an arbitration panel against the English Football League’s Financial Fair Play fine, reported as being as much as £40m, had failed.   An appeal by QPR against the arbitration decision is expected.

This fine is far greater than any other fine imposed by the English authorities on any club in England, and has been reported as potentially the largest fine in sport.  We note that these FFP regulations have demonstrably affected a number of medium and small clubs while the real big-spenders in football have been free to splash the cash year after year.

QPR is not only a football team but it is also a major contributor to the local community, not least through its Community Trust. It cannot be acceptable to put a football club’s future on the line in pursuit of outdated fair play regulations.

As a supporters’ trust, QPR1st has always campaigned for the club’s owners to act in a financially responsible manner and always to put the club’s security and stability at the forefront of its strategy.

The financial record of QPR has improved markedly since the appointment of Lee Hoos as CEO two years ago. QPR1st want to see this new responsible stewardship of the club’s finances continue, without a disproportionate fine.

In due course, we expect a full account of  decisions made by our owners which appear to have led to  QPR being  in breach of the rules and to fully meet any financial consequences that may result from such decisions. We shall be writing to Mr Fernandes to stress this point.

QPR1st

Meeting with the club and Police regarding arrangements for the upcoming Millwall match

Posted on by QPR1st Posted in Community, QPR1st

QPR1st and the LSA met representatives of the club, the police and Millwall fans. Based on current intelligence the police have said that their response will be ‘graduated and proportionate’. There will be no specific escort of Millwall fans to the ground although officers will be stationed at key points. Millwall fans will not be held back at the end of the game.

The club has confirmed that Ellerslie Road will be the only entry/exit point for Millwall fans. At the end of the match they will be directed towards Bloemfontein Road. QPR fans are advised by the police to arrive early and those in Ellersie Road to leave in the direction of Loftus Road.

QPR1st representatives suggested keeping Millwall fans in after the match for a short period to minimise contact between the two sets of fans. It is understood that this option will only be considered if there is trouble on the night prior to the match ending.

Congratulations for Game for Grenfell

Posted on by QPR1st Posted in Community, Events
Congratulations to all those at the club who did so much to make the Game for Grenfell an extraordinary success.  It was a remarkable event supporting people in need which should make all QPR supporters proud of the club we support.

Ride London Football Grounds, Sept 1st 2017

Posted on by QPR1st Posted in Community, QPR1st

We now have the details for this year’s London football charity cycle ride to support the work of Prostate Cancer UK. On 1 September join other London club fans and cycle to all the league grounds in a day, or just some of them. The riders are at Loftus Road early afternoon. Details here:  https://prostatecanceruk.org/rlfg17

Club rejects £25 reciprocal away ticket offer from Ipswich Town

Posted on by QPR1st Posted in Community, QPR1st

Last week QPR1st Supporters’ Trust in both a private communication and a public statement called on the club to give travelling supporters a bit of new season – and Christmas – cheer by agreeing to a £25 ticket deal with Ipswich Town for the Boxing Day away fixture. (See Request for £25 away ticket deal for Ipswich )

Away fans are vital to creating a good atmosphere at games. The level of time and money our travelling fans give to the club makes a real difference and the supporters trust are committed to encouraging the club to do whatever it can to make away games as accessible and affordable as possible.

As part of this commitment, we  urged QPR to agree the reciprocal deal offered by Ipswich Town which would have limited the cost of away tickets to a maximum of £25. This is something that a sizable (12?) number of other Championship clubs have agreed on with Ipswich. We agree with the Football Supporters Federation that in the absence of a price cap in the championship league such deals offer the best hope of keeping the cost of away tickets down.

The club has now confirmed to us that it will not be participating. According to Lee Hoos, “the running costs of our stadium are substantially different than Ipswich and this price point simply doesn’t work.”

Stephen Dedridge, chair of the supporters trust said: ‘We are extremely disappointed with this decision as it means that QPR supporters travelling to Ipswich on Boxing Day will be paying more for their tickets than the supporters of those twelve other clubs who have agreed to the deal”.

The supporters trust will be pressing the club at the next supporters consultation meeting to explain its decision in more detail. If so many other clubs have found the deal financially viable then we would like to know why this is not the case for our club.

Request for £25 away ticket deal for Ipswich

Posted on by QPR1st Posted in Community, QPR1st

QPR1st Supporters’ Trust is calling on the club to give travelling supporters a bit of new season – and Christmas – cheer by agreeing to a £25 ticket deal with Ipswich Town for the Boxing Day away fixture.

Ipswich is writing to clubs in the Championship suggesting a £25 reciprocal ticket deal for away fans for all its games. Twelve clubs have agreed and QPR1st believes QPR should join them.

The Trust has written to club CEO Lee Hoos asking for a positive response to the Ipswich proposal. Trust chair Stephen Dedridge said: “Away fans are vital to creating a good atmosphere at games. The level of time and money our away fans give to the club makes a real difference and we want the club to do whatever it can to make away games as accessible as possible.”

He said: “Away supporters deserve a decent deal on ticket prices. This would be a good gesture of goodwill to travelling supporters to announce this now, at the beginning of the season, and also helpful for supporters when cash is stretched at Christmas”.

Away ticket prices in the Championship have come under serious scrutiny following the introduction of a league-wide cap of £30 in the Premier League. With many away tickets priced in excess of £30, some even over £40; the Championship is one of the most expensive leagues in the world to follow your team.

Reciprocal deals have been immensely popular among away fans where they have been introduced by some clubs in recent seasons and have made a significant contribution to the uplift in the number of away fans going to games.

Lee Hyde, director of retail operations at Portman Road, is reported to have said: “Supporters travel 1000s of miles every season watching their club so we listened to feedback from both our own fans and those of visiting opposition teams and decided to initiate a price cap.”

Along with countless other supporter organisations across the country we have campaigned for the introduction of a “Twenty’s Plenty” cap on away tickets – a national campaign co-ordinated by the Football Supporters’ Federation.

Stan Bowles Benefit Game

Posted on by QPR1st Posted in All News, Community, QPR1st
The Stan Bowles benefit match provided fans with an opportunity to show how much they value Stan Bowles and it was clear from the way he reacted to the chants and cheers that this support was important to him. QPR1st congratulate all those involved in particular the Just for Stan Committee, the club and, of course, Stan and his family.  
 
For more information on Stan and how to support him and his family go to  http://www.justforstan.com
Top