NEW CHAIRMAN BILL BLASTS PAST REGIME

from the Hammersmith Times 13th October 2004

QPR are flying high in fourth place in the Coca-Cola Championship, a second Monaco investor has pledged over £1million to the club, and things are looking brighter than at any time since Les Ferdinand was banging in the goals in the Premiership.

But in the future, when fans look back over the history of Queens Park Rangers, May 2002 may be a much more important and significant time in the club's destiny than October 2004.

It was then that QPR came out 13 months of administration thanks to a
£10million loan secured against their Loftus Road headquarters.

The repercussions from that decision are still being felt within the club and are likely to be for years to come.

Chairman Bill Power has already been forthright in his condemnation of former supremo Chris Wright over his shares, and now he spares none of his vitriol for the former board members who agreed to a massive loan with an unknown corporation (the ABC Corporation) who are charging the club 10 per cent interest per year, with an option to increase that interest rate if QPR fail to meet a clause which would see them pay off the loan early.

"No-one knows who the ABC Corporation are and yet we're paying them
£1million interest every year," said Power. "It was an appalling, ludicrous deal which was set up by one of our 'old friends'."

Ludicrous it may well have been and it is important to remember that at the time the loan was taken out, there were two separate consortia - a group fronted by the Winton family and another by JR Ivan, who seemed to have the money in place and the desire to take over the reins of the club.

The part played by joint administrator Ray Hocking of BDO Stoy Hayward is also questioned by the current chairman.

"We had one of our own administrators coming to us with this deal and even then someone went in on our behalf and came to tell us that the interest was not going to be eight per cent a year, but 10, and the deal had to be done that day," said Power.

"The deal didn't have to be struck that day and now we'll have a millstone round our necks for the next 10 years. In fact longer, because then we'll still owe £10million."

Both Power and shareholder Gianni Paladini have been attempting to contact the ABC Corporation to try and renegotiate the loan, but so far to no avail.

The ABC Corporation, a Panama-based company, is said to have been set up by Michael Hunt, a former managing director of Nissan UK who was convicted and jailed for tax fraud in the 1990s.

It seems that the likes of Power, Paladini and new chief executive Mark Devlin have inherited a club that has been run disastrously over a number of years, and it is only now that they can attempt to turn the financial corner, but not without cut after cut and redundancy after redundancy.

As well as the £10million loan, there are a host of other questionable financial decisions which were to cost QPR thousands of pounds.

QPR made a profit of £1.7million in 1996 before Chris Wright bought both Rangers and Wasps in August of that year for some £13million and floated Loftus Road plc on the stock market.

With confidence high, the directors got their own rewards. Charles Levison was paid £100,000 in 'success fees' for working on the flotation, while Wright himself became a part-time non-executive director and his company Chrysalis was paid £96,000 for the privilege.

QPR, Wasps and Loftus Road all had their own chief executives with QPR's in the shape of Clive Berlin who was given a £100,000 salary plus bonuses and benefits.

Berlin then spent the flotation cash on players like Gavin Peacock, John Spencer and Mike Sheron on huge salaries and long contracts, while 15 youth team players were on full time salaries, with several allegedly being paid over £50,000 a year and three staggeringly over £100,000.

It is little wonder that that sort of spending ended with Rangers going into administration and into the then second division, but since Wright's departure it seems that the financial picture has stumbled from one disaster to another, and it is now left to the new board to try and pick up the pieces.

Whether they can may depend largely on whether that millstone of a loan can be renegotiated, but that seems to be a long way off, if it is even possible at all.