QPR facing a record fine after £65m loss

Change of plans: Ton Fernandes

6 March 2014

Queens Park Rangers could be fined almost £50million for breaching Football League Financial Fair Play rules after losing £65.4m last season.

The losses, revealed today, were the biggest in British football last term and the record punishment is set to be applied if the club win promotion back to the Premier League this term.

If Rangers fail to go up they will avoid the fine but be slapped with a lengthy transfer embargo instead.

The losses relate to their second season in the Premier League, which ended in relegation last year despite majority owner Tony Fernandes sanctioning a £41m spending spree on players by Mark Hughes and Harry Redknapp.

The club’s wage bill rose from £58.5m to £78m, which is higher than Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund and it has also emerged they are £177m in debt. The accounts show turnover of £60.6m although that would have been lower had it not included “management fees receivable from the parent company”.

As QPR were relegated to the Championship, their accounts are subject to the Football League’s FFP rules which limit losses to £8m a season.

Clubs breaching FFP are subjected to a sliding scale of fines, the Financial Fair Play Tax. QPR’s penalty is estimated to be around £47m although they are thought to be one of the clubs preparing a legal challenge to FFP. When news of that leaked, the League’s initial response was that they would robustly defend a policy which the majority of clubs had voted for.

When Fernandes bought QPR in August 2011, as they began their first season back in the top flight for 15 years, he spoke of being “prudent”. Three managers and six transfer windows later, the club are totally dependent on his funding, with Fernandes’s Tune group having loaned the club £115m and the Mittal family loaning £40m.

The players signed in the 12 months from May 2012 included Ji-sung Park (£2.7m), Samba Diakite (£3.5m), Junior Hoilett (£3.3m), Esteban Granero (£7m), Stephane Mbia (£5.2), Chris Samba (£12.5m), Loic Remy (£9.2m) and Yun-suk Young (£1m).

The wage bill was swelled by the acquisition on free transfers of Julio Cesar, Andy Johnson, Jermaine Jenas, Rob Green and loanee Andros Townsend.

Next year’s figures are likely to be little better. Deals which are not included in these figures are those made since relegation, such as Matt Phillips (£5m), Charlie Austin (£4m) and Karl Henry (£1m), with Richard Dunne, Danny Simpson and Yossi Benayoun coming in on free transfers.

Some of this expenditure has been recouped, notably on Chris Samba (£12m), while a lot of players have been released but the impression is of owners desperately throwing money at the club in the hope of gaining promotion and recovering their losses.

Automatic promotion is starting to slip away from Rangers after a dip in form which has left them fourth, nine points off second-placed Burnley with a game in hand.

Manchester City and Chelsea are the only clubs to have made bigger one-year losses although last season City lost £51.6m and Chelsea £49.4m. West Ham were given the biggest fine in British football when, in 2007, they were ordered to pay £5.5m over deals for Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.

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QPR facing a record fine after £65m loss

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