Fernandes defends QPR spending

Fernandes defends QPR spending

Published Feb. 3, 2013 7:15 a.m. ET

Queens Park Rangers chairman Tony Fernandes has strongly defended the club's spending in the January transfer window, despite admitting to taking a gamble.

The Hoops brought in Tottenham's Jermaine Jenas and Andros Townsend, South Korean Yun Suk-Young, as well as Christopher Samba from Anzhi Makhachkala, in what was a frantic finish to the club's winter dealings last week.

Along with the earlier signing of Loic Remy from Marseille, Fernandes broke QPR's transfer record twice during the window and has come under scrutiny for his reckless spending.

The Malaysian entrepreneur is confident the league strugglers will not face a financial meltdown as a result. Speaking to the Telegraph, he said: "If you analyse it we haven't spent that much money on transfers and as for our wage bill, when I look at other clubs when they put their results out then ours is not too bad and there is now value in the squad.

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"I don't think there is any recklessness there.

"No one can guarantee anything in football, but you try to minimise the risk as much as possible and that's where the expertise of the management comes in and they say 'this is what we need to survive' and you look at it and if it makes sense then the board and myself support it.

"Anyone who says we are gambling then - of course we are.

"There are no debts like at other clubs. We've put in a lot of money and it's no different from setting up a car business or an airline.

"But it takes time. QPR were an underinvested club. Simple as that. I'm not in it for one year, I'm investing for the future. I'm investing to build a stadium, to build a training academy, to build a proper business.

"Of course when you buy a small club you are going to incur some losses at the beginning.

"We, QPR, have to move out of the small club syndrome and for constant security have to build a bigger stadium, a better infrastructure. So far it hasn't worked but we won't be the first club for whom everything hasn't gone exactly to plan."

The Hoops currently lie bottom of the Premier League with their ?20.5m spending over January an attempt to avoid relegation.

Looking ahead, Fernandes added: "We inherited a squad where every single player who has left is no longer playing in the Premier League, doesn't that say something? We have replaced and replenished the squad at a very low cost because most of them were free transfers. This is the first window that we have spent big money.

"It's not always about money. QPR are the bottom club and you don't come to the bottom club for the dollar sign. And I'm not going to get players for the dollar signs."

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