Following on from Monday’s Club statement confirming that the Board of Directors of QPR Holdings tendered their resignations ahead of potential new investment, Wayne Veysey and Simon Johnson wrote an article in yesterdays Evening Standard. Extracts from it are shown below:-
Renault chief Flavio Briatore will complete his takeover of Queen’s Park Rangers within the next 24 hours. Michael Mancienne, who’s on a Season’s loan at QPR from Chelsea, believes the arrival of new funds could ensure Rangers get back in the Premier League next Season.
Three of Rangers’ four main shareholders have signed documents selling their shares to Briatore and the fourth, Franco Zanotti, is expected to follow suit this evening. Club Chairman Gianni Paladini, plc Chairman Antonio Caliendo and Brazil Manager Dunga, who with Zanotti make up the Monaco-based consortium that own 62% of the Club, have sold their holdings to the Italian businessman over the past few days. “There is only Zanotti left and then the deal is complete,” said Paladini. “It will either be tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest.”
A Press Conference is likely to be scheduled for early next week to unveil Briatore, who is in Istanbul preparing for Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix. Briatore will clear Rangers’ ¬£17m debt and will hand Manager John Gregory around ¬£10m, which will allow him to strengthen his squad before the transfer window closes.
Mancienne admits that the worries over QPR’s future had affected the dressing room but now feels the Club will be able to challenge at the top rather than the bottom of the Championship. He said, “There have been a lot of rumours around the Club, so it will be great that they can get out of debt and sign a few players now. There has been a bit of talk in the dressing room about whether a takeover would happen, so now we can concentrate on the football. We haven’t got off to the best of starts but we can bounce back. QPR are a big Club and if they have a bit of money to spend on players they can challenge at the top of the Championship.”
Steve Russell