And a flashback to October 2005, with Caliendo and Gianni meeting with QPR1st. Whatever differences I may have, AT LEAST Caliendo and Paladini inthose days met with supporters groups as opposed to what is currently done and not done. QPR 1st - Latest Trust meeting with GP and AC
Monday, 24 October 2005 Last Friday representatives of the Supporters Trust met with Gianni Paladini, Antonio Caliendo and Chris Pennington. The report from the meeting can be viewed below.
In attendance:
QPR Holdings Ltd Reps:
Gianni Paladini (GP) Chairman; Antonio Caliendo (AC) Monaco groups’ consultant; Chris Pennington (CP) Chief financial officer
QPR 1st Reps:
Geoff Gibbs (GG) Treasurer; Tracy Stent (TS) Chairperson
Other: Tony Altieri; Italian translator
Venue: The Chairman’s office, QPR FC.
Foreword
Friday’s meeting was the second in what we hope will be a series with the new board at QPR holdings ltd and with key club personnel.
As per the first meeting, the agenda/format of the meeting was taken from questions arising from a document, which had been prepared by the Trust in advance.
The meeting was a lunchtime one, which allowed for a slightly more relaxed atmosphere as it meant that unlike at evening appointments, we weren’t constantly clock watching.
Due to Antonio Caliendo’s attendance, we felt it would be worthwhile all round if the Trust were able to secure the services of an Italian interpreter as we understood that his English is not too hot, and so after some searching around, we came up trumps thanks to the Bedford Rs posse and their Italian contacts.
Tony, as it turns out, is a wine rep and works for one of Italy’s biggest pasta manufacturers. When Gianni Paladini and Antonio Caliendo heard about this they became rather animated because they apparently would like to introduce a variety of pasta ranges into QPR for the players and hospitality areas etc, whilst the company concerned are interested in breaking into the English sporting market. The various people concerned are going to have a chat about this possibility next week, which just goes to show what a small world it is in which we all live.
The responses and quotes from Mr Caliendo within the report are as a result of the exchanges and translations between Tony, GP and AC, and whilst at times there were lengthy chats between all three, Tony ensured he translated back to both of us exactly what had been said, and we’d like to express our sincere thanks to him for helping us out because his services helped to ensure that the meeting ran smoothly. He also helped to put Mr Caliendo at ease, which with the way Italian football clubs are run i.e. in a rather autocratic style where owners/boards run the clubs and supporters ‘support’ their clubs without getting too involved within the internal affairs, was a rather important factor to our minds in terms of showing him the English way so to speak.
With so much to talk about, it was obvious that we were never going to be able to keep to the agenda strictly, but what follows is an accurate report on how it went, and on all issues raised and responses.
We hope you enjoy the report and if anyone would like to ask us anything relating to it then please do get in touch.
Tracy & Geoff
Introduction and questions for Antonio Caliendo
Once the informal introductions had been made it was down to business and first on the agenda were a number of questions for AC. It was explained that due to the recent newspaper articles and publicity surrounding him, (TS produced a copy of the recent article in the guardian written by David Conn) many supporters are very curious to learn more abut him and was asked to introduce himself to the average QPR supporter.
Firstly, the article was mentioned and GP said that a phone interview had taken place, which meant some of AC’s responses had been misinterpreted. For instance, AC is not going to be the new chairman as was reported, GP is the Chairman, and AC is helping him out in his capacity as consultant to the Wanlock and Barnaby groups. It was asked if it were true that AC has given up his FIFA agent’s license, and if so, what it would mean in terms of his organisation in Monaco? AC confirmed that he has given up his licence and that there will be a club/board restructure in the future. In terms of his organisation, this will not be affected because he has other people running it, he is more a figurehead of it, “the president”.
TS then asked if there were any issues with the FA or the Football league relating to AC’s rather chequered past? AC responded by saying there are no problems, that he accepts there is some ‘past’ but that he wants to start with a clean slate regarding QPR. “If there were any problems with the football authorities then I would not have been granted my FIFA licence”
He was then asked why give up his licence for the sake of QPR? AC responded by saying how Gianni Paladini is an old friend of his, that GP approached him to see if he could help him out, so he (AC) approached others, based in Monaco, and that “they have invested on the back of his trust”. Once again the subject of the consortias was raised with AC reiterating there was no need for fans to concern themselves, and that there were no sinister motives. They had invested based on their trust in him and he then went on to mention reputations, how he would not have come here unless he felt he could make it work and that he “wants the supporters to be very proud of the way the club is run”.
When asked on further clarification regarding AC’s role relating to the two groups, we were once again informed that AC is a “consultant” to them.
Another issue raised was the one relating to the sponsorship of his son’s racing car, and if it costs the club anything? CP said that he could confirm the sponsorship does not cost the club anything whilst AC said that he sponsors his son regarding any money from his own pocket, and that he thought it would be a nice gesture for the QPR club crest to be shown on his son’s car whilst participating in racing events.
Revisiting the background to recent events
Whilst it became apparent that GP did not wish to speak about many of the recent events, including the alleged gun incident and the departures of Bill Power and Mark Devlin, we raised the subject of the board minutes which had been published in the evening standard from that meeting back in August, and said how when on asking to view them ourselves, the Trust had been informed that due to the confidential nature of some of the content relating to them, the club were unable to issue them to us, and then lo and behold only days later large chunks from those minutes had appeared in the ES for all and sundry to read.
CP replied that he understood our frustrations but that the club themselves had been doubly frustrated by the leaked minutes and went on to say how as a business, they could not release board minutes due to the confidential nature but that they (the club/board) would try to be as open as they possibly could be.
GP said that whilst talking about the evening standard, he had that very day, received the offer on an apology from them. He was deciding what to do.
Note: since being told this by GP on Friday, we are hearing a conflicting side of the story from the evening standard, who say they have not offered GP an apology. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future.
We then asked about if there were an update on the situation in relation to a general manager’s position at the club, once again explaining that with there now being no CEO, supporters are not sure who to contact at the club if they have any concerns, issues or general feedback they’d like to raise with the club. GP and CP both said that the various departments are in charge of their own areas and therefore if anyone has any problems in relation to say tickets, then supporters need to contact the box office etc. As was pointed out to them though, not all fans are in the fortunate position to be able to know exactly who to contact and that regarding supporter customer care, in our opinion, a general manager/customer liaison manager is required for the supporters. GP said that when Mark Devlin’s pa comes back to work, she will be asked to be the pa to the board, and one of the responsibilities would entail her forwarding any queries etc received to be sent to the various departments.
We will however continue to pursue this matter.
We asked for an update on the structure of the club, and also pointed out that it might not actually be good corporate practice to have one individual in almost total control of club affairs. AC showed us a partially completed organisation chart listing the re-vamped staff structure. It is assumed the Trust will be given a copy of the final version of this in order to assist supporter communications with the club.
GP did say, as mentioned before, that a possible board restructure could be happening in the future in order to give him support.
We then asked the question about Kevin McGrath and if they could inform us as to why he had resigned from the board? GP and CP informed that it had been a mutual agreement, that Kevin has political aspirations, and when asked what is happening about his shares, they said that they do not know.
Finances
The next part of the report relates to the financial issues discussed and for easy reading, we have sectioned the various topics into individual paragraphs.
a) 2004/5 accounts
GP/CP advised these are completed and will show a loss in the region of £2.5million. The club intend to publish these to the members and call an AGM shortly.
b) 2005/6 budget
When asked about the projected losses, CP explained the loss in the current season would be between £1 and £1.5 million. It was accepted that CP could be no more specific as we are only five months in to the club’s financial year. The amount of the loss will also be affected by and transfer activity in January. CP went on to say that that under the new regime, the budget would be drawn up each year on a break-even basis rather than under one of the previous regimes when up to £3 million loss was budgeted with the misplaced hope that new investors would come in to finance the deficit.
GP stated that from now on the club would be run in “The Italian Way” in that he would be in charge of the day to day running and the club would look to break even.
When asked to elaborate further on what he meant by “The Italian Way” he said that basically so far they cut back staffing “to help the club” and that basically the Italian way means streamlining in that there will be more work with less people.
He also said that they have now stopped making payments ‘on invoice’ and that all payments now go out at the end of each month i.e. players wages one specific date each month, staff wages the next, and bills etc the next day.
He and AC also said that previously any one from five signatories could authorise cheques. Now it is 3 signatories required.
c) Agents’ fees
We asked, once and for all, could we clear up the agent’s fees issues, including the Brian Hassall/Nygaard situation, and also how much are we likely to spend on agents this year? GP told us that agents’ fees are a fact of life in football and he was now in charge of authorising these. He stated that the club will no longer pay fees for the renewals of contracts, that these would be down to players to pay their agents direct, and stated that Nygaard’s agent's fee was to be paid in tranches, and related to a player who cost nothing on a “Bosman”. We did get the feeling that GP was unwilling to be specific as to the level of future agents fees but he was willing to say that these would be within the overall budget to be prepared by CP. This may explain some of the uncertainty in the 2005/6 budget.
And the Nygaard situation we asked? GP said that they had tried to sign Torre Andre Flo in the summer, that this had fallen through and so because a big man up front was required, he put enquiries out and the name of a player at Brecce came through. This player was Marc Nygaard, he came over with his agent (along with Milanese) who was Brian Hassall. BH he admitted was an agent with whom a court case had taken place with in the past, and that yes, he (GP) had been awarded to pay him costs.
TS asked if the rumour were true that Nygaard in fact had been a player without any agent, and that as a result of this, BH had taken up an agent’s role representing Nygaard, in order for a fee to be struck between them as part of a “costs deal”?
“Absolutely not true” was GP’s response, he insisted that Hassall had been Nygaard’s agent, that in fact there was a dispute relating to a couple of other agents who had insisted that they in fact were his agents, and that the £60k was an inclusive amount.
d) New finance and future loans
Next up to be discussed was the issue of new finance and further loans by directors. GP explained that any losses from now on would be financed by new loans from the Monaco shareholders or directors. CP went on to say these new loans would be interest free and unsecured. He also stated they would be structured in such a way that these loans will not be repayable on demand which meant that if the investors lost interest in the club they would not be able to demand their money back, expect immediate repayment and if this did not happen, put the club back into administration.
e) Players Contracts
The highest basic wage paid by the club is £3,500 per week, which is augmented by bonuses and incentives. The players’ budget is estimated at £3.5m. GP was unwilling to state if he felt we could keep to this amount for the current year.
f) Paye and Vat
CP confirmed that Paye was being paid each month shortly after the due date of the 19th. This means the current year (2005/6) is to all intents and purposes is up to date and no new arrears are being created. There were some unspecified arrears from previous years that are reducing and being repaid monthly. Despite being asked the direct question CP was not willing to divulge the exact amount of these arrears.
It was confirmed that Vat was being paid on time and the club was not currently being subjected to any Vat surcharges as a result of late payments.
g) Interest paid
We asked why the club had paid £1,150,000 interest in the 2004 accounts when only £1,000,000 was attributable to ABC and were told the extra £150,000 was in relation to “old regime” directors and shareholder loans, as well as to late payment interest for Paye and Vat.
ABC loan
We asked the question if The ABC Corporation are connected with any of the Monaco consortiums or the investors behind them. GP and AC seemed to find this amusing and stated categorically that ABC and the Monaco groups are not the same!
GP and CP explained they had no more clue than us as to who was behind ABC. There is very little copy correspondence in the QPR offices in relation to the loan. CP advised that he did not know if any arrangement fee or commission was paid on the loan when originally set up. CP also stated that at the beginning of each financial year on 1st June the figures showed a £1million loss. It is hoped that ABC may accept early repayment of the loan, which will be re financed with a more traditional identifiable lender.
We asked GP if there were any update on this, and if so would he be able to tell us with which banks the club are hoping to renegotiate with. GP stated that so far there have been talks with two banks, one of which would offer an interest rate of 6.5, whilst the other would offer 7%. He is unable to inform us at the time being as to which banks they have been talking to but CP said if they could get the loan renegotiated with a traditional institution, they would feel safer. He also said that on such a renegotiated deal, £300,000 per year in interest charges could be saved which could be directed to repaying the £10 million originally borrowed.
When asked about any fee charges for early repayment by ABC and CP said it would be negotiable.
And what about any new bank, what kind of security would they look at in order to protect their money? It was stated that any bank would secure a charge on the assets i.e. the ground.
And is there any truth in the rumour that the club have been behind in its payments to the ABC Corporation we asked? Absolutely not replied GP.
BP shares and the Hoops Fund
We asked who was going to buy Bill Power’s shares and it was suggested they would most probably be bought by one of the Monaco groups, or even possibly another Monaco consortium with different ownership to the two existing investors.
We explained that the Hoops fund currently holds £12,500 of supporters money, which in order to comply with the original concept, has to be spent on buying shares in QPR Holdings, with the money going to the club for a specific good cause. We acknowledged that the company is not in a position to create new shares as the Authorised capital is all issued and any increase would cost in excess of £5,000 in legal fees.
We asked AC if he would be willing to speak to the Monaco group/s that would be purchasing Bill Power’s shares to ask them if they would allow us to purchase a small portion of them before they buy them all. AC and GP said they would look into it for us sometime in the near future when there is not so much going on.
CP then stated he may know of someone who would be prepared to sell their existing shareholding for a nominal sum at the same time as the balance of HF monies going to the club. We stated that we would hope to achieve a holding based on the same price as that for recent/pending share transactions and he said he appreciates that any money going in to the club would have to be allocated to a specific project e.g. disabled facilities. He suggested we put our request in writing to him and he will then talk to other shareholders, as well as to AC.
Future of the club
We firstly asked if the board could speak about the entire atmosphere at the club recently and if it feels it is positive for the players, staff, and supporters? All three board members present admitted that the recent months and weeks had been difficult ones, that it hadn’t been easy, but that they now felt things were stabilising more. AC spoke once again of the Italian method, how in Italy they (the board) run the clubs and the fans support the team. He said he likes the idea that boards and supporters are close and that he would like to go back to Italy and show them the English way.
We moved on then to talk about ticket prices and asked if the fall off in attendances were leading to a loss of income greater than anticipated or budgeted for? CP confirmed that gate turnover is up in the current year in terms of monetary terms even though crowds are down. The likelihood of this continuing during the latter part of the season of course though will depend on future performances etc. Both GP and CP could not advise as to the split in the decreased season ticket numbers between Adults/Juniors/Student/OAP.
AC said that when the season tickets went up they (GP and himself) were not consulted.
We then asked a rather difficult question in that if AC could clarify as to the substance of the rumours we heard last year about a sale and leaseback of the ground having been mooted by him and other board members? And also would the current board consider doing a sale and leaseback of the Loftus Road ground in the future?
AC said he would not respond to something like that as it was a complete non-goer. GP himself appeared to become quite agitated regarding this matter and said how he could not understand why so many people seemed to talk about the sale of the ground and insinuating that they (the new board) were a bunch of crooks. GG explained that there have been instances in the past of clubs having lost their grounds after false promises by their owners (Brighton and Maidstone were given as examples) and that supporters only wished to seek reassurances that their club would have a ground to play at in the future.
Which then led to a rather interesting discussion about a potential new ground in which basically the idea is that QPR would ‘own’ a new ground on the Astroturf/park site in South Africa road, which would cost in excess of £40m to build. This would apparently be self-financing. GP stated twice that should such an idea become a reality, QPR would own the new ground, and would stay at the existing Loftus Road whilst it was being built.
We stated that if such a new ground were to ever go ahead i.e. if the council were to give planning permission etc, then there would need to be a strict stipulation that QPR would remain playing at LR until the new ground would be built. GP agreed and said he would agree to this as being a written condition within any planning application.
We did point out to GP that football is littered with architect’s models of new stadiums that have never happened hence our initial scepticism.
One final question asked before CP and Tony had to leave the meeting was how the board envisage the various groups remaining at QPR for the foreseeable future, particularly so if we do not go up either for this or next season? GP responded by saying that as far as he is concerned he is here for the foreseeable future, that he only wants to do what is right for the club, and AC reiterated that the people in the Monaco groups have invested because of their trust in him and so he cannot see any reason as to why they would wish to pull out.
AOB
Season tickets and future ideas
With Tony and CP having departed we then moved onto a couple of other specific issues with the first one being the season ticket/matchday ticket prices. We presented to GP and AC a document that the Trust had put together containing a number of proactive marketing ideas relating to this whole matter.
The suggestion was for GP and AC to have a look at it all, for GP to liaise with Mike Pink at the commercial and marketing department, and also with Jenny Elliott, the box office manager, because they will be the people that will need to decide upon the feasibility of such ideas, and for us all to have a little chat about it in a month’s time or so.
To view the documents (there are 2, one is suggested ideas for season tickets/matchday prices and the other is a doc with suggested student schemes) click on the links on the homepage from where the link for this report was posted. We welcome any feedback on this.
GG also handed GP and AC a copy each of a Goodwood racecourse members’ booklet containing information on reciprocal events. The suggested idea of QPR looking into a similar reciprocal basis relating to other sporting events has been mentioned within the season tickets document as an idea to think about to give season ticket holders some kind of extra benefit.
Football league letter
The old chestnut of the football league letter, sent to the old board back in March 2002, in which it was apparently stated that in order to retain its membership of the FL, QPR needed to come out of administration by the time the fixture list came out, was raised, with TS asking GP if he would give the Trust permission to go to the football league, informing them that the supporters trust had the permission of the club to allow it to publish this letter on their website, thus clearing up the matter once and for all? GP said he would be happy to give us permission, said he hadn’t seen the letter himself, TS assured him it did exist, and so he is going to sign a letter to the effect asking the FL to allow us to do this.
Fans Forum
We asked if there were any update on this since our last meeting, TS pointed out that it was part of the club’s customer charter, and GP informed he would speak to Phil Harris and get something arranged for before Christmas.
Ian Holloway
The final question to be asked related to Ian Holloway, and if there were any news on a new contract for him? GP refused to be drawn on the subject and just said that Ian Holloway is the manager, and that any talks of new contracts would occur as and when.
Summary
We would like to thank Gianni Paladini, Antonio Caliendo and Chris Pennington for their time. The meeting lasted for over two and a half hours and was based on a part formal/part informal structure. Whilst there remain unanswered questions, we do feel that it was most certainly a worthwhile meeting and we hope that what we have reported on has been of interest to members and the fanbase in general alike.
We are conscious that there are many on-pitch issues to be discussed but with time so scarce we opted to pursue the off-pitch matters that the Trust feels required flagging during the time that we had. We will though continue to push for a fans forum at which there will be plenty of opportunity for all kinds of issues to be discussed with GP and relevant club personnel.
CP reminded us he has now been with the club for a year and stated that he was sleeping soundly at night for the first time in ages. He accepted that the club’s £9 million turnover meant it was not a particularly large business and appeared anxious to avoid falling into the trap of spending money as if it were a company with a larger turnover. It will be interesting to see if CP delivers the 2005 accounts on time (as promised by GP at our two meetings now) and with the exception of the Paye arrears, CP answered all our questions, and more, without having to research.
Regarding the situation of a potential new ground, we are pursuing a meeting with the local authority, they have been frustratingly slow in getting back to us, but we will persevere with this.
Season tickets document
www.qpr1st.com/docs/seasontickets.doc www.qpr1st.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=141:latest-trust-meeting-with-gp-and-ac&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=4
