Fernandes - warning signs already

[a1canary 0]

Looking at their forums QPR fans seem to think Fernandes is the messiah for their club.

I''d be a bit more circumspect if i were them. He has barely been there five minutes and he seems to have far too much influence over transfer policy. I''ve already read how some of the bids they''ve made had more to do with Fernandes than Warnock while other targets that Warnock had identified Fernandes wasn''t happy with.

Can you imagine if McNally started telling Lambert that his transfer targets were the wrong ones?

Trouble with Fernandes is that really he''s just a football fan with a lot of money. Like woman in charge of aircraft. Very dangerous.

He has been a lifelong West Ham fan and i''m sure he finds it hard to resists sticking his oar in about who they should be signing. We would probably be the same if we were owners of a club.

He also has already shown his inexperience in sacking Warnock and his backroom staff and coaches, while only having a hope of a replacement who is still not sure if he''s going to join (Hughes). If he Hughes decides it''s not for him, Fernandes will be interim coach for their game at the weekend!

His antics so far would not fill be with hope if i was a QPR fan.

[bristol_canary 0]

Great post about Norwich City Football Club

[Canarino 0]

"Like woman in charge of aircraft"

Great sexist post, too.

[a1canary 0]

In case you hadn''t noticed, for many a long year the club has been seeking external investment, and at one point this might have come from Tony Fernandes himself. Delia has taken huge stick in previous years for refusing to let the club go to someone who''s intentions aren''t clear. Fernandes may to most - me included - seem a better option that many (maybe even to Cullum) but what i''m saying here is that even he may not be great for a club.

P.s. For Canarino:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_lo3yiZd2k

[Canarino 0]

Sorry, I am not amused by casual sexism, just my take on things as a middle-aged woman.

[a1canary 0]

I got it wrong anyway - woman drive car, monkey fly plane. Not woman fly plane.

It was just a tongue in cheek reference to Borat movie sorry. Really, i''m not sexist. I know some women. Some of them are my best friends. Another one is my wife.

[Crispy 4]

i knew allot of sexists that are married .... that''s no defense !OT tho I do feel Fernandes is being a bit too hands with transfers & doubling up as their spokesman but sacking Colin I think was right.

[Yellow Shirt 17]

Fernandes inherited Warnock and has seen him do a poor job after spending a lot of money. Tony also strikes me as someone who may be uncomfortable with Warnocks love for controversy- I know it is an act to wind people up and he thrives on it but it is unnecessary and causes people to dislike the club. I would not tolerate that as ceo of a company- I have removed people from my business for constantly giving off the wrong vibe to clients so can see that may be a reason when combined with poor performance.I know people will say that his overall record at QPR was good but under Fernandes his record was poor.Getting in his own man seems fine to me especially as he''s give Warnock a fair crack first.

[Reggie Strayshun 0]

It''s true that this thread is hardly a Norwich City related one, but that aside, if you look at the wider issue, then Yellow Shirt is quite right. For better or worse, Fernandes has sunk a fair bit of cash into QPR, so surely it''s up to him who he wants as manager ?  I''m sure he takes the same view in his Air Asia airline business, so why should his football operation be any different. ?

 

As several of us have said over the past week, Warnock is NOT a Prem manager. Period. So , as a responsible business owner Fernandes has taken the decision to replace him.

 

On an even wider issue, if we are prepared to look beyond the Anti Ipswich  and Anti Warnock rhetoric for a minute (difficult, I know !), then to be fair, there is a view that Ips and Colin would be a perfect fit right now. Where Colin HAS been successful is taking under-achieving teams in the lower leagues and bringing about a rapid improvement.

[norfolkbroadslim 225]

[quote user="a1canary"]Looking at their forums QPR fans seem to think Fernandes is the messiah for their club. I''d be a bit more circumspect if i were them. He has barely been there five minutes and he seems to have far too much influence over transfer policy. I''ve already read how some of the bids they''ve made had more to do with Fernandes than Warnock while other targets that Warnock had identified Fernandes wasn''t happy with. Can you imagine if McNally started telling Lambert that his transfer targets were the wrong ones? Trouble with Fernandes is that really he''s just a football fan with a lot of money. Like woman in charge of aircraft. Very dangerous. He has been a lifelong West Ham fan and i''m sure he finds it hard to resists sticking his oar in about who they should be signing. We would probably be the same if we were owners of a club. He also has already shown his inexperience in sacking Warnock and his backroom staff and coaches, while only having a hope of a replacement who is still not sure if he''s going to join (Hughes). If he Hughes decides it''s not for him, Fernandes will be interim coach for their game at the weekend! His antics so far would not fill be with hope if i was a QPR fan.[/quote]

 

 

[:O][:O][:O]

[Block Y Seat 176 80]

Who in his right mind would buy a newly promoted football club with a fast approaching start of the season that led to panic buying"names".

Winners of the play off final are said to be at a disadvantage because of the diminishing time to the start of the season to plan the purchase of players etc.

Warnock is the fall guy but Fernandes is another one of a long line of dreamers who will fail and one of the main causes is his poor strategy. Stats aren''t favourable for relegation threatened teams that change their manager at this time of the season.

H

[Old Shuck 291]

If Fernandes took over another airline and found me sat in a big Office as its MD, I''d sure as hell expect the sack if I didn''t prove myself pretty damned quickly; I''m a lot of good things, but MD of an airline I''m not and the same applies to Warnock and QPR.

The thread is relevant to NCFC because he made noises about looking at investing with us at one point, just as he did West Ham. So we could have had him here, although probably without the same level of power and control he has at Loftus Road-and his attitude may well have been that, if he was going to sink millions of pounds into something, then he wasn''t just going to sit back and let someone else make the decisions about what was to be done with his money.

And you can''t blame him for that!

He knows how to be a success at business-but football?

The people at Sunderland got it right. They got Niall Quinn involved as Chairman-perfect mix. Had, or if, Fernandes does the same at QPR, they may yet make hay. But whilst he continues to do it all his way, there will be up''s and down''s on the way and I''m sure Mark Hughes will want some sort of reassurance that the football side of things will be up to him and him alone before he takes the job. He had interference at Fulham and walked because of it.

Whoever, ultimately, takes over at Carrow Road would need to have the same outlook. So, not only are we looking for a benevolent, Norfolk-loving billionaire, but one who would be content to let our own version of a Niall Quinn, advise and manager day to day.

[Canarino 0]

I agree with Yellow Shirt that Warnock''s antics were getting more and more inappropriate. For some reason he gets a lot of media attention - probably because journalists are hoping for him to say something outrageous, which he often does. The Barton/Johnson incident was a good case in point, he just wouldn''t shut up and was sounding ridiculous. I heard him talk about Johnson throwing himself to the ground, which was simply a lie, and obviously so to all who watched the footage - but it somehow goes unchallenged, because it''s Warnock. I wouldn''t want him representing my club, if I''d forked out millions of pounds.

[Beauseant 0]

In many ways the set up at QPR is the complete antithesis of our own. Fernanades has to be in the forefront, doesn''t seem to be able to keep off Twitter (I seem to recall the TV coverage showing him bent over his phone for  most of the game against United) and doesn''t seem to realise that going public with the news that his new manager will have £30m to spend isn''t conducive to getting good deals in the transfer window, nor will it help to settle an already fractious dressing room. He''s tweeted this morning that he''s certain they''ll name the new manager today, which will look great if Hughes wakes up having had a change of mind overnight.

[mrdi 411]

I certainly wouldn''t want Fernandes at City with this carry-on. QPR are already something of a soap opera. An unpleasant one at that. Contrary to the chants at the end of our game there last week, I think Fernandes did indeed buy the right club. The Championship is where they belong.

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 2,424]

It''s well known that Fernandes wanted to buy QPR much earlier than he eventually sealed the deal - he was in talks even before they were promoted but the these took much longer than he had hoped for. It is also well known that Fernandes didn''t want Warnock in charge and the writting was always on the wall, however with the takeover happening so late and the strong support Warnock had from the fans there was no choice but to keep him in place. Most of the signings were arranged by Fernandes through his football adivsors (agents) and Warnock had very little say in who was brought in - although he did indentify some targets and key positions.

 

Fernandes goes on about how he is a football fan, and is living the dream owning a club etc etc, but his main reason for being there is to increase exposure of his Air Asia brand and to open doors for himself. He is an incredibly powerful business man in Malaysia and Asia as a whole and he cleverly uses sports and the opportunities it provides to improve his businesses. This can work out for QPR as this plan revolves around the team being established in the Premier League - it may also backfire as the players brought in will always have the ''does he increase our exposure'' test applied to them. Warnock said how he was sent off to watch a Korean game to look at potential transfers, and although there are many excellent Korean players I would also hazard a guess that this is linked to Air Asia looking to increase their market share in Korea over the next few years.

 

If you want a football club run as a football club then Fernandes isn''t the man you want in charge - not that his method probably won''t bring a modicum of success for the club.

[grantroederdisaster 0]

We''re too big a club to be the passionless ego trip toy for a tycoon and exposure for his Airline company!

 

While after relegation in 2009 I thought Smith and Wynn Jones'' time was up, they rectified things by appointing Bowkett and Mcnally and our set up combined with having a much larger fanbase is far superior to the plastic set up at QPR!

 

Fernandes'' money would have been nice but he was never going to play 2nd fiddle to the existing owners

[i,coopius 0]

[quote user="a1canary"] I know some women. Some of them are my best friends. Another one is my wife.[/quote]lol

[First Wizard 0]

Say what you will but I''d still like PL to have QPR''s transfer budget. [IMG]http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Respect/respect-069.gif[/IMG]

[birchfest 401]

[quote user="First Wizard"]Say what you will but I''d still like PL to have QPR''s transfer budget. [IMG]http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Respect/respect-069.gif[/IMG][/quote]even if it wasnt Lambert picking the signings....

[Old Shuck 291]

If Lambert had the budget and absolutely control of who he wanted, that would be rather nice!

But some of the buggers probably still wouldn''t want to come here, shades of that bloke who wouldn''t because his wife didn''t want to come here and the other one who faffed around and then gratefully took the offer from Wigan!

Not surprised I can''t remember the names!

[PurpleCanary 6,391]

[quote user="Old Shuck"]

If Lambert had the budget and absolutely control of who he wanted, that would be rather nice!

But some of the buggers probably still wouldn''t want to come here, shades of that bloke who wouldn''t because his wife didn''t want to come here and the other one who faffed around and then gratefully took the offer from Wigan!

Not surprised I can''t remember the names!

[/quote]

 

That was Cottterill, who was joining us until Craig Bellamy advised him to go to Wigan. It seemed a shame, at the time.

[Mr Brownstone 0]

If what I''ve been told is accurate, Fernandes came extremely close to buying us in the summer we were promoted from League One.

 

Extremely close.

[a1canary 0]

I''m still sexist though apparently coopius. Because i referred to a line in the Borat movie.

Anyway, back to topic, anyone who thinks this has nothing or little to do with Norwich needs to wise up.

This has EVERYTHING to do with any club that has significant debts and harbours dreams of supposed white knight saviours ''investing'' in their club. It''s particularly relevant because Fernandes is actually the more likely type of investor that clubs might find, unlike your Chelsea/Man City types of which there are only really a handful. Not only are there a lot more like Fernandes, they also appear, on the face of it, to be the kind of owner we might accept.

As i said, he''s a fan with a lot of money (but not billions) who fancies the idea of running a club and believes it fits with his other businesses, as Bethnal Yellow astutely points out. This is similar to the Venky''s who think the Indian angle and an EPL club represents an opportunity for both. But this immediately introduces additional priorities that result in things like being asked to look at Korean players, being asked to go to India.

Do we want this kind of investment that leads to all this kind of off pitch activity that interferes with the job the manger has to do? I accept the commercial angle is a fact of life but really, you only need to ask one question. Would Lambert put up with it? Would he put up with interference on transfers? Would he put up with being told to take his team to India? Would he put up with being ask to look at a bunch of players from a particular country. The answer to all these is an emphatic no - he''d be gone in a heartbeat. Do the commercial bits, fine, maybe even a pre-season tour of Malaysia as we did when Proton were sponsors.

And as for the airline/MD analogy Shuck, this is misleading. Fernandes knows what he is doing when it comes to airlines, so sure, if he found you in the MD chair at Air Asia, he''d be right to sack you. He is NOT a football man and he has no experience of running a football club. Lets think of other business people who came in to run football clubs without any experience of doing it. Who was the chap from Sainsbury''s that Delia bought in - Cooper was it? Had no idea what it would entail, by his own admission when he left with his tail between is legs. Simon Clegg anyone? Yes, football is a business, but you have to know what you are doing, and that is why, for all her faults and many mistakes of her reign, Delia MWJ, with all their experience, are now (not in the past) the best owners we could have right now and handing the reigns to a Fernandes type could so easily be a recipe for disaster. The fans need to understand this and make this known when the time comes for a change of ownership.

[Beauseant 0]

[quote user="Mr Brownstone"]

If what I''ve been told is accurate, Fernandes came extremely close to buying us in the summer we were promoted from League One.

 

Extremely close.

[/quote]

 

I''m not sure it is. This was discussed at the Supporters Group meeting early this season and both MWJ and David McNally were very clear that, although Fernandes had been "sniffing about", no offer was ever made.

[PurpleCanary 6,391]

[quote user="Mr Brownstone"]

If what I''ve been told is accurate, Fernandes came extremely close to buying us in the summer we were promoted from League One.

 

Extremely close.

[/quote]

 

Close to making a serious offer, or close to us accepting a serious offer? At the time it didn''t look as if Fernandes was really interested in us. The idea was put to him by Norwich fans around him at Lotus and he was effectively bounced by a social media campaign into attending a match and having talks with directors.

 

Of course, that initial uninterest might have disappeared during those talks. My only private information (from one source as opposed to the two one needs) is that  we never got near seriously accepting any offer he might have made, assuming he did make a serious offer. Which is by no means certain. It needs to be remembered that he still harboured hopes back then of buying West Ham. He only started looking at QPR once he failed there.

[Murphy and the Bricks 0]

Maybe someone can explain to me why a West Ham fan would want to buy or invest money into any other club. I''m Norwich City through n through my blood runs yellow & green & there is no way on the earth had I a spare few quid in my back pocket I would put it into any club other than Norwich. Fernandes is a West Ham supporter yet has the audacity to wear a QPR scarf. Don''t get me wrong I would love PL to have the money available that Fernandes has reported to have made available, I use the word reported as those that shout about it & all that, but not at the expense of having him hold a gun to PL''s head. I just don''t understand the status of owning a football club, a good mate of mine(who shall remain nameless) is on his third club & although he is worth several millions there is no way I would want him having anything to do with Norwich as he doesnt support them!!!!!

[Syteanric 1]

[quote user="Stunning volley from Goss"]Maybe someone can explain to me why a West Ham fan would want to buy or invest money into any other club.[/quote]ask Robbie Cowling.....

[Mr Brownstone 0]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Mr Brownstone"]

If what I''ve been told is accurate, Fernandes came extremely close to buying us in the summer we were promoted from League One.

 

Extremely close.

[/quote]

 

Close to making a serious offer, or close to us accepting a serious offer? At the time it didn''t look as if Fernandes was really interested in us. The idea was put to him by Norwich fans around him at Lotus and he was effectively bounced by a social media campaign into attending a match and having talks with directors.

 

Of course, that initial uninterest might have disappeared during those talks. My only private information (from one source as opposed to the two one needs) is that  we never got near seriously accepting any offer he might have made, assuming he did make a serious offer. Which is by no means certain. It needs to be remembered that he still harboured hopes back then of buying West Ham. He only started looking at QPR once he failed there.

[/quote]

 

As I said, I''ve no idea how accurate this info is (actually came from someone in F1, not football) but I was told that the two parties had got as far as agreeing a price (no idea what) however when we were given permission to increase the ground capacity the asking price, quite rightly, was put up at which point Fernandes walked away. His loss.

 

[Mr Brownstone 0]

[quote user="jas the barclay king"][quote user="Stunning volley from Goss"]Maybe someone can explain to me why a West Ham fan would want to buy or invest money into any other club.[/quote]

ask Robbie Cowling.....
[/quote]

 

Or Mike Ashley.