QPR Fail to Learn Lessons from Premier League Relegation

It is awfully early in the season to be talking about relegation, but if there’s one team that needs to be seriously worried, it’s Queens Park Rangers.

They currently sit bottom of the table with a goal difference of -11 after just seven games. They may be level on points with fellow new arrivals Burnley, but worryingly for boss Harry Redknapp and owner Tony Fernandes, they have the playing staff—and the accompanying wage bill—that befits a comfortably mid-table side.

It’s the latest chapter in a long saga of underachievement for the club. Their relegation two seasons ago belied the colossal amount of money they’d spent on transfers (£22.5 million that season alone, along with several free transfers earning huge wages, such as Brazil national goalkeeper Julio Cesar).

It marked the end of a largely unhappy spell in the top flight, having only escaped the drop the previous season on the final day.

With Redknapp in charge and Fernandes still willing to bankroll the club, the Loftus Road faithful had every right to be confident going into last season. However, after a fantastic start, the team faded badly and only achieved promotion—the bare minimum expected—via the play-offs.

Despite the notoriously transfer-happy Redknapp’s assurances that the club would spend more responsibly in their second crack at the Premier League, the offseason saw them finish with a net spend just shy of £20 million, per Soccerbase, despite the deadline-day sale of Loic Remy.

In comparison, Burnley spent just £4.5 million, and the other promoted side Leicester paid £8 million in total.

Fernandes has plied the club with funds to pursue countless transfer targets and pay new acquisitions wages that would make many clubs vying for Europa League places balk.

Rio Ferdinand, a free signing in the summer, is reportedly earning between £60,000 and £70,000 weekly, per the Daily Mail.

However, his choice of managers has lacked savvy. Mark Hughes’ failure at the helm was surprising given his track record, but with Redknapp, Fernandes’ free spending approach has been taken to gratuitous extremes.

Redknapp has expended huge quantities on a series of average players and now finds the club with a distinct lack of Premier League quality and remarkably few saleable assets, aside from Charlie Austin.

Redknapp has always relied on players he knows and understands, but this season it has proved to be his downfall. Niko Kranjcar—even with his last-minute heroics against Stoke—looks like a luxury player and a passenger in a team desperately short of graft, just as Adel Taarabt did two seasons ago.

Ferdinand certainly brings experience to the table, but his rapidly diminishing abilities have already been exposed on several occasions. Redknapp’s pursuit of Jermain Defoe over the summer distracted from more appropriate—and effective—transfer targets.

Both he and Fernandes should know better by now, but they appear to have simply not learned their lesson. This time, however, relegation will carry a much bigger price.

While they will still be cushioned by parachute payments and may have taken actions to better secure the club’s wage structure in the event of relegation, there is a financial black hole awaiting them in the second division.

Should last season’s losses match those of the year before, Rangers will face a £54 million fine for breaching the Football League’s Financial Fair Play rules, per BBC Sport.

While the extremities of the situation—Fernandes refusing to pay, the Football League refusing to readmit QPR—seem unlikely to come about, it’s hard to see how the authorities will be able to avoid dishing out whatever the fine is in full.

If they try to cut Rangers some slack, it will completely undermine the initiative, and it won’t be long before another club finds itself a wealthy owner and can simply spend their way to the Premier League.

Despite Fernandes’ claims he would appeal the fine, he must have appreciated that should the club be relegated for a second time under his ownership, the consequences would be dire.

And yet he has kept Redknapp in charge, despite his relatively poor record in relegation battles and his exorbitant transfers, many of which have failed.

Redknapp has made clear his opinion of the club’s chances in the league, already declaring that he won’t be helping the club out of the Championship for the second time should they go down, per The Sun (h/t Sky Sports).

Fernandes has so far proved as patient as he has generous with QPR, but if the club go down again and are hit with a huge fine, it’s not hard to see him losing interest and walking away.

QPR will be faced with a huge wage bill, an ever-increasing mountain of debt and—without Fernandes—the dark trail blazed by Portsmouth, their demise partly a result of Redknapp’s transfers, as their road ahead.