Football League chief warns QPR they face refusal from Championship if they don't comply with fine for Financial Fair Play breach
Should Queens Park Rangers suffer relegation this season, they could be refused entry into the Championship unless they comply with an expected fine
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Your support makes all the difference.Queens Park Rangers face dropping all the way from the Premier League to the Conference if they refuse to pay a £40m fine under the Football League’s rules for financial fair play.
When QPR reveals its financial results later this year it is likely to face the huge fine, for losses sustained during its season in the Championship. Should the club be relegated from the Premier League, Football League Chief Exeuctive Shaun Harvey said he could refuse the club admission to the league unless the money was paid, something the club has said it will contest.
“Theoretically, that is the position but I would hope there would be resolution long before that option even had to be considered. The one thing for certain is that most clubs [in the Premier League] will become a Football League club again,” said Harvey, speaking at the Soccerex conference in Manchester.
“Now QPR will of course be hoping it does not happen for some considerable number of seasons but the chances they will need to return to the Football League fold at some point. Certainly, three of the 20 clubs that are in the Premier League will be in the Football League next season.”
If QPR had remained within the Football League it would face transfer embargo but, under new rules, having been promoted to the Premier League it faces a fine instead.
QPR chairman Tony Fernandes stated his intention to contest the fine when the club were promoted last season.
The club posted record pre-tax losses of £65.4m for the year ending May 2013, when they were relegated from the Premier League. The losses for the last financial year, when they were playing in the Championship, will almost certainly be extremely large.
Financial fair play rules exist to stop clubs spending huge sums not generated by their normal business operations, which would give them an advantage over other teams.
The Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, wants the rules amended but there is almost no prospect of any agreement being reached before the clubs must publish their figures on 1st December.
The Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, is also on record as saying the rules needed to be amended. Harvey said there was little chance of them being altered before the FFP declarations had to be made on 1 December.
Harvey said: “Unless the 24 clubs vote to change the rules, the rules as they are now will stay in place. I don’t suspect there is any form of rule change that would be considered or brought forward that would see the current circumstances we potentially face changing.”
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