‘There was a divide’: how QPR are rising again after painful lesson

15-Oct-2021 16:00:33 | The Guardian

Club are in Championship play-off mix with sustainability and youth at their core after teetering over the financial abyss

Tony Fernandes is discussing whether the pandemic will force football clubs to alter their habits and, in reaching his conclusion, finds a parallel with the sphere in which he made his fortune. “I see it in the airline industry,” the Queens Park Rangers co-owner says. “In the boom times everyone is buying planes like they’re popcorn, then when there’s a recession they cut right back. Then things get better and they go back to being exactly the same as they were. Football will go that way too. Nobody’s really going to learn from this.”

It is persuasive logic given the excesses that persist among the sport’s elite, but Fernandes may be living proof that a leopard can change its spots. During the early years of his decade-long stewardship, QPR were poster boys for the ills of chasing a dream and damning the consequences. They careered out of the Premier League twice, running up eye-watering wage bills and leaving behind a trail of failed big-name signings and managerial appointments. A £42m fine for breaching Financial Fair Play regulations, a punishment Fernandes maintains was harsh, provided strong medicine but their present-day condition is barely recognisable.