Q: When are you going to give Ian Holloway a new contract, in recognition of the work he’s done and continues to do in turning the club round?
A: We’ll be sitting down with Ian’s agent in the first week in December to start looking at the contract. I’ve made no bones about it: we don’t want to get involved in too much detailed negotiation through the season. When we extended his contract last time round it went through nine different drafts and took us about two months to complete and, having seen the effect that has on everybody, we want to keep everybody focussed on the job in hand which is quite straightforward: we need to get out of Division 2.
We know where we want to go, the reality of it is that negotiating the manager’s contract isn’t straightforward and on that basis it’s going to take us some time. Unless Ian accepts my first offer, which he’s never done to date, and I’m sure he’s got demands that I’m probably not going to accept, so the reality of it is it takes time. It affects not just Ian, it affects his family, and obviously for us it affects the rest of the management structure so it’s a long process, a difficult process and we do want to renegotiate it. Obviously we want to do it when it’s not distracting him from the main job at hand.
Q: Have any discussions taken place with Fulham to involve Queens Park Rangers in the Fulham / White City project with a view to a groundshare, that is if the project ever happens? Surely it makes sense for the two clubs to work together on this seeing as QPR will always be restricted in developing Loftus Road?
A: I think the blunt answer is no, there have been no formal discussions. We’ve had chats round the bar, there’s been discussion about what are you doing at the Helical Bar site - that’s the old Dairy Crest site - and I think anybody who reads the Standard or listens to Tom Watts’ show will probably understand that you never quite know who is talking on behalf of Fulham Football Club and who is talking on behalf of Harrods.
And the difficulty for everybody here in a directorial capacity is you can have a conversation with people from the club but you don’t know whether they can deliver on it. Our problem has been trying to get to the seat of power, to someone you can have a discussion with who can commit to something over a longer term period.
It’s quite clear from our discussions with the local council that there is no way they’re going to allow two stadia to be built in such close proximity to each other. And that’s not just about logistics of traffic, and staff coming to the game pre- and post the time the doors open. It’s about the level of disruption the two clubs would have on the local population – can you park your car at the front of your house - and the effect that has on the quality of life for people in this area.
The reality of it is in West London, with land prices as they stand today, a shared ground makes economic sense, but I don’t believe for one second that economic sense is necessarily going to be the sole driver of any planning decision that Hammersmith and Fulham make.
That gives you a bit of the background; it also tells you the situation today in terms of our relationship with Fulham. My understanding is that Fulham are going back to Craven Cottage to a ground as it stands today and they need planning permission for the changes they want to make.
The one thing that I think everybody sitting here who’s got any feel for the current political situation in this area knows is that there are residents groups in the Fulham area that are not going to lie down and allow that club to build whatever they want. Not without a thorough investigation into what it is they’re intending to do, and as they’ve proved over the last 18 months, they are perfectly capable of mounting a robust challenge to any planning application that the club are making.
So, as I sit here at the moment there are no formal discussions. I think their situation as a club is fairly fluid and I would not be surprised to see them playing some of their games here next year. Has there been any formal discussion on that basis? None whatsoever. But I know that the planning process is long, it’s arduous, and I expect there to be objections, and on that basis what we’re talking about is really only five months to the end of the season and actually only 10 months to the beginning of next season, and to do what they’re planning to do is going to take an awful lot of building. And that assumes there is no objection to what they want to do. So I think one has to be realistic about it in that they may be here for some of next year.
Q: How would QPR react if someone from Fulham comes along and says in the modern age, if you want to play Premiership football, it’s absolutely a waste of time unless your stadium holds 30,000 or more if you’re going to compete on any long-term basis with other clubs in the Premiership. Would you listen to an approach from Fulham, or indeed would it be something that QPR might take to Fulham as a proposal – a groundshare for two Premiership clubs to use as a 30,000+ capacity stadium together?
A: You raise a couple of good points there. First of all you’ve introduced ground capacity as a criterion and obviously I believe that’s more of a consideration for us than it is for Fulham.
You know, at the moment our average crowds are thirteen and a half thousand, theirs are probably slightly less than that and they are in the Premier League and they have got Premier League away support factored into that. I think for us it’s a sensible thing to look at because the stadium is cramped.
But there are design features here that are important to us The atmosphere that we’ve all gloried in in the last two home games can only be achieved in the design that we’ve got and there’s also an emotional attachment to this ground and therefore us going somewhere else as a tenant is never going to be on the agenda.
The reality of it is we have to go in either as the majority owner or at least a half-share owner. We have to feel that it’s our home, and that covers many factors: it has to feel like our home and it has to appear to you as the fans to be our home.
Now for us the Helical Bar site, for those who don’t know, is right at the end of South Africa Road and is effectively behind the White City tube station. That parcel of land means that the trip to the ground would be not dissimilar to the onw that you have when you come here to Loftus Road. The important thing for you is that when you walk into that ground you have an emotional ownership of it and therefore it being Fulham’s ground in black and white would have a serious effect on that process. I think the reality is, the board as it stands today wants to be providing facilities that back up the aspirations of our fans and a facility that allows Ian to provide a product on the field that we can all share in. So it’s a very very complex mix.
Q: Have any penalties been levied against Le Coq Sportif for lost revenue as a result of their ongoing “Coq-up” with the replica shirts? If not, will such penalties be built into any future contracts?
A: Right, let’s start at the beginning then. If any of you here have had duff shirts because the manufacturing is bad, the club apologises. We recognise that the delivery in from Le Coq has been sub-standard. We’ve been dealing with Le Coq and I think there are a number of people round here who know that the two guys at the top of Gilbert & Pollard Sports who own the franchise for Le Coq in the UK are QPR fans. So we know they’ve been sub-standard and we’re working with them to try and improve it.
The absurdity for us was that the home shirt was coming in in dribs and drabs, and there was a point when we had more away shirts. We know that was unacceptable and we apologise for it. When we negotiated during last summer it was the renewal of what had been a 6-year relationship – two 3-year deals – and within reason their last two years’ delivery had been acceptable. So we didn’t have, and never had, penalty clauses in there for poor delivery. There is a break clause in there if the material or delivery is unacceptable: it has no penalties, you just walk away from the contract.
I think the reality of it is we do enjoy doing business with QPR fans as a straightforward trade relationship and we were giving them notice that we were trying to get the improvement there, and I think we saw it in the delivery of the away shirt. We talked about financial penalties, and we have received some cash back from them as they have negotiated with their suppliers, and the suppliers have given them some penalty compensation because of their poor delivery. All of that said, that’s not going to make up for the poor delivery that you’ve received, particularly those of you who would have been waiting for shirts through the mail order. I’m not going to make any excuses: it’s poor. We know it’s poor and we’re working with them to try and improve it.
Q: Is the money to keep the club going running out? Will we be getting more money in?
A: The best way of answering that is to say it’s a hand-to-mouth existence. It’s tough at the moment. The big investment hasn’t come in yet in the way that we’d hoped, and there are a number of reasons for that. Not all of them can I sit here and say I totally understand myself. The answer is it’s a hand-to-mouth existence.
We’ve gone as far as we have because you as the fans have bought in huge numbers merchandise when it’s been there, season tickets in record numbers, cup games both LDV and League Cup. And it’s tough. I’m not going to sit here and make any statement that makes it any easier for you. It’s bloody tough. But I’m sitting here saying this and, with the exception of six clubs in the Premiership, the same message is being said to every single set of fans in the country. It’s hard work. And it’s easier for us than it is for some.
Q: We have been linked with a number of investors in the club and we know we’ve done tremendously well over the last few seasons. There’s something really good happening at this club which we all know about and the fans really acknowledge. But although we have been linked with a number of people, nobody’s come in to put any money into the club and we haven’t really got the budget to buy new players. Why do you think we don’t have that investment in QPR and people are not coming forward? Why are the board not accepting investment into the club or is something not going right with the proposals to put money into the club?
A: First of all, we’ve never turned anybody away who’s had cash there and been prepared to put it in. We’ve had people like Kevin McGrath who’s joined the board, Bill Power – all of whom said “Look I’ve got money and I want to put it in”, and we’ve taken it.
What has concerned me is that there’s been a number of people who’ve said they’ve got money, who’ve gone out to the press and said they’ve got it, and when you’ve actually said “OK, put it in”, there’s always been a reason not to do it. And that’s unfortunately I think a direct driver of what you’ve outlined to the rest of the audience. It is that football, as you’ve seen time and time again, attracts men of straw. The reality of what I’ve had to deal with is a number of people who’ve come in, promised big and delivered little.
Now I know there was a question that came in off the website asking what is the single biggest thing stopping people from putting money in . Having thought through it quite hard, the single issue that is raised every time is that the individuals who’ve come in want control. It’s not to do with the loan, from ABC, it’s not to do with is it £10m, is it £11m, is it £12m, it’s to do with “I want 50-odd per cent”. And unfortunately that goes with wealthy people: they want to feel it is theirs, to do with as they wish.
And the plc structure that we have is a major hurdle because we sit down and say actually you have to get to 51% to give you the control that you want. And that costs. That’s a problem.
Now, do I really think that is what has made people go and buy other clubs? For example, Peter Ridsdale. Peter ran out to the Standard and said that he’d made an offer for the club and, whatever offer he made, he never committed to paper and he never proved the funds that he needed to do it. He blamed everybody around him for not coming to the table.
I went to him and said “I understand the structure you’re putting in place and I support you with this. I will step down as the chief executive to allow you to come in as chairman and / or chief executive.” What I’d ask the audience here to do is just put yourselves in my position: I have a wife, three kids and a mortgage. So for me to go and say “Look, I’ll give my job up so you can come into this club” – I’ve got to be fairly clear that the guy is actually going to do it.
And he let us down. Never came to the table. The guy lives in Skipton, and has bought Barnsley. Now you don’t need to be Einstein to realise it’s an easier gig for him to go to Barnsley than here. Now I think he’s wrong. I actually think we are the club that can convey what he wants, which is the rehabilitiation of his reputation, better than Barnsley ever can, because we have something to grow on.
I think it’s been very difficult for you as fans to sit at your breakfast tables and read reports about supposed bids and think “Hang on a second, what are these tossers doing? Why aren’t they taking them?” Well I can sit here and say very few of them have a) proved funds and b) been able to deliver.
And the difficulty for me is I’m bound by confidentiality; I can’t stand up and say “Well you’re a complete man of straw because you can’t deliver” but yet again I’ve got a number of you who are emailing me, saying “You pratts are standing in the way of the progress of this club”.
If somebody had actually got the cash there to complete a deal, and their demands were that David Davies stands down, Nick Blackburn stands down, and Ross Jones stands down, we would do it. And I can sit here with honesty and say that there are staff around here who know that one individual said to us this weekend “I’ll put a million pounds in if Dave Davies stands down”. I said to him face to face “I will stand down now. Put your money in”. He turned round yesterday and said “I can’t do it.” I think the difficulty for me is to get across to you the frustration that I feel in dealing sometimes with people I’d rather not have to deal with, because I actually know they’re full of crap.