QPR chiefs prepared to ‘fight tooth and nail’
Chief executive Philip Beard has reiterated that QPR’s owners will remain committed even if the club drops out of the Premier League.
Saturday’s controversial defeat against fellow strugglers Bolton left Mark Hughes’ team in the bottom three and on course for relegation.
The Tony Fernandes-led regime’s attempt to spend big in order to stay in the top flight looks like it may backfire, but Beard believes they will not be deterred should Rangers return to the Championship.
He said: “The thing I think is really important is that we’ve got a group of shareholders who are totally committed.
“My understanding – and I spend a lot of time with them – is that they are 100% committed to this club in the short, medium and long term.”
Last September QPR vice-chairman Amit Bhatia told West London Sport the club was “debt free” following the Fernandes-led takeover.
Despite huge spending on players, Beard agrees with that assessment and insisted: “We have no debts in the club whatsoever. The only debt is with the shareholders.
“Ideally we stay in the Premier League this season and kick on. If things don’t work the way that we want them to, we’ll regroup and fight tooth and nail to come back up.”
Related story: QPR would cope with relegation – Bhatia
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14/03/2012 @ 1:04 pm
People,
The owners and directors are realists just like the club. They have to consider both staying up and going down. Because they say we will fight tooth and nail to get back up, that doesnt mean they expect to go down or are resigned to going down. They are letting the fans know of their commitment to the club and that they are reassuring us that we will be okay either way.
I personally think we wont go down and we will do the typical qpr thing and stay up in the hardest way possible!
Keep the faith my fellow Hoops… U R’ssss
14/03/2012 @ 2:21 am
do you ever here or read any other football club giving up and addmitting that we are planning for relegation? everyone at qpr should be embarressed by this especially the owners,board wheres the motivation from them and hughes stopblaming others and sort the crap defending out. drop barton and wright, philips and play players that want to be at qpr i think it will be hard fight but i have always liked to prove people wrong. warnock got a raw deal he pannick by signing player that were not as good as we already had and he let gorks go who was better than who he signed but the time was against warnock , bothroyd.cambell,ferdenan,wright philips and for me my biggest dissapointment barton. newcastle dont want you,they are better without you. get over it and start earning your money and do what i thought we had bought for qpr a motivator and fighter then we can stay up!!.
14/03/2012 @ 12:39 am
If this is taken at face value it’s a sensible step to reassure fans that no Portsmouth-style meltdown would result from relegation while carrying an well-paid squad. I see this as realism more than complacency. Has this season gone well? No. But the timing of the transfer of ownership was horrible. How different things might have been if Tango and Cash had sold up days after promotion was clinched, giving Fernandes and co. time to prepare properly for the transition. Instead, all our signings look like the result of panic buying the best available players rather than an organised plan to create a balanced team.
13/03/2012 @ 3:36 pm
He isn’t saying he thinks we are already relegated (although I do). He is merely stating that even if that happens he believes the board will stay and see out their long term plans for the club. We are still suffering from not being able to plan properly pre-season due to the takeover happening so late. Although many of the key players need to hold their hands up and admit they haven’t contributed to the level they are capable of.
Just because we have rich owners does not give us an automatic right to be in the Premiership. If relegated I would like us to keep most of the squad, especially Cisse, Zamora and Taraabt. That forward line would absolutely hammer most teams in the Championship.
13/03/2012 @ 10:55 am
This all sounds very good..but ‘fight tooth and nail to come back up’
The complacency at QPR is what bothers me the most. We should be fighting tooth and nail to stay up and forget the championship…forever. It has taken until now for my beloved club to realise they were in dog fight for survival for some time now.Now its pratically too late with a nightmare run in. Its no longer in our hands and thats eating at me. Why oh why have they been so blinkered. All the talk of the future and where the club is going they have been blinded by the ambition and lost focus on the present. What are we left with….a lingering hope of a miracle.
13/03/2012 @ 10:10 am
Looks like we are resigned to relegation if they are thinking this way. It’s a real shame given what we have gone through as supporters and as a club in the last few years. A bit of luck wouldn’t go a miss between now and the end of the season, something we haven’t had much of recently. Fingers crossed.