Queen's Park Rangers Struggling Financially - 24/09/03

At the beginning of April 2001, Queen's Park Rangers went into administration and only came out over a year later. Chairman Chris Wright stood down, but between July 2000 and January 2001, he had to provide loans totalling £5m to keep the club afloat. In September 2003 the club was dealt a major blow with the news that Australian businessman Peter Thorne had withdrawn his offer of a £2m investment in the club. He had planned to use Loftus Road as a European base for Australian and New Zealand soccer. ABC Corporation of Panama City loaned the club £10m in 2002 which enabled them to pay off outstanding debts, mainly to Chris Wright, and come out of administration. The interest rate is 10 per cent which means that the cash strapped club has to find £1m a year. However, there no was no other solution available. The club is expected to lose £2.5m in 2003-4 and the chief executive has stated that it will not make it to the end of the season if no new investor comes in. If the club goes bust, David Conn writing in The Independent noted, 'the Loftus Road ground, a nice potential development site in Shepherd's Bush, will be repossessed by a Panamanian Corporation, represented by [in the UK] by a struck-off solicitor involved in property investment.' It's a cautionary tale for clubs with big ambitions and a lack of the means to pursue them.