AirAsia chief’s EPL venture may suffer huge setback as QPR faces RM310m fine
Fernandes enjoying a game at Loftus Road last season when QPR were in the English Premier League. - November 17, 2013.AirAsia boss Tan Sri Tony Fernandes's Queens Park Rangers (QPR) is set to pay the price for last season's excessive spending with a potential £60 million (RM310 million) fine looming, the Daily Mail reported.
If the fine is imposed on QPR, it will be the biggest in British football history and the first under the Football League's new Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.
QPR has racked up huge debts and massive annual losses largely due to the signings of dozens of players on huge contracts in recent seasons, the Daily Mail reported.
The expensive signings include Christopher Samba (£12.5m), Loic Remy (£8m), Stephane Mbia (£5m), Samba Diakite (£4m), Esteban Granero (£3.5m) and Park Ji-sung (£2.5m),
There were also a number of players who were signed by QPR without a transfer fee but have contracts worth up to £100,000 (RM517,000) a week.
The FFP was introduced by the Football League in all three of the divisions it operates from the beginning of the 2012/13 season.
The purpose of the FFP is to reduce the levels of losses being incurred by clubs and to establish a league of financially self-sustaining professional football clubs.
The £60 million fine is being imposed because of the massive amount of losses QPR are reporting, believed to be £80 million (RM413 million) for last season.
In a worst case scenario, the Daily Mail reported, if the fine is imposed on QPR, it will compound the club's financial malaise and may even spark a meltdown.
The Daily Mail added that if QPR were to gain promotion to the English Premier League (EPL) this season, the fine would be levied by the Football League in January 2015 under their new FFP rules.
The new FFP rules will see clubs which overspend get "taxed" on their losses. QPR are currently third in the League Championship and are among the favourites to win promotion.
If they fail to get promoted, they could avoid the £60 million fine or at least postpone it. However, the club will still be hit with a lengthy transfer embargo in this scenario.
The Daily Mail explained that while the situation was complicated, in layman terms, Championship clubs have to pay a £1 fine for every £1 they lose over £18 million in the 2013/14 financial year.
Club sources told the Daily Mail that the club is expecting to post losses of about £80 million for 2012/13.
However, the club is not obliged to publish its accounts until next spring and have declined to comment on its losses.
Tony owns two-thirds of QPR while the remaining one-third is owned by the Mittal family, who are among the UK's richest people. Tony has estimated that he has ploughed £50 million into QPR since taking over in August 2011.
Due to his majority shareholding, Tony has the ultimate power at the club and he was responsible for sanctioning the hiring of Mark Hughes as manager and the spending spree which followed.
It was also Tony who fired Hughes after QPR failed to win a single league match in the first half of the 2012/2013 EPL season, then hired former West Ham, Portsmouth and Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp, who also bought more players.
Ultimately, the hiring and firing of Hughes and Redknapp along with the large turnover of players was in vain as QPR were relegated last season.
The Daily Mail reported that the club expects to record another massive deficit for this season, and it is the losses in 2013/14 that will be measured in the calculation of any fines.
"If QPR's losses for this season are £80 million, the fine will be about £62 million or the equivalent of all of the club's EPL income for next season (if they are promoted)."
"Even if the 2013/14 losses are as low of £60 million, the club still faces a potential fine of £40 million," the Daily Mail reported.
The last publicly available accounts released by QPR was in the 2011/12 season, when they reported losses of £22.6 million.
During that time, QPR also revealed that they had debts of £89 million and a wage bill which had doubled from £29.7 million to £58.4 million.
The Daily Mail said it was pertinent to note that the doubling of the Loftus Road club's wage bill had been reported before the influx of expensive signings made by Hughes and Redknapp.
The English daily reported that the wage bill for QPR's relegation season was expected to be around £90 million, or about 150% of the club's total income of £65 million.
Most clubs in England are tried their best to keep a sensible wage ratio of close to 50% of their turnover to remain in the black.
Following their relegation, QPR have offloaded some of the top earners at the club in an effort to slash their wage bill.
Christopher Samba was sold back to Russian club Anzhi Makachkala for £12 million while Loic Remy joined Newcastle for £2 million. Park Ji-sung has also returned on loan to his former club in Holland, PSV Eindhoven.
QPR's income this season has plunged due to relegation from the EPL, most of the lost revenue being due to the massive reduction in television money. - November 17, 2013.
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