EXCLUSIVE: By MATT LAWTON
Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone is set to buy Queens Park Rangers,
Sportsmail can reveal.
Ecclestone, worth £2.25billion and the 20th richest man in Britain,
has linked up with Renault F1 chief Flavio Briatore to acquire the
west London club from Gianni Paladini.
The three men are understood to have shaken hands on the deal within
the last fortnight. Paladini has been looking to sell for around
£30million but has told friends he would accept substantially less if
the deal was right.
Under the deal, Paladini would stay on as chairman, running the
Championship club on a day-to-day basis, but Ecclestone and Briatore -
a football-mad Italian - have the financial clout to transform a side
with one of the wealthiest catchment areas in the country. Ecclestone,
who has transformed the fortunes of Formula One with his tough
management style, has no track record in football but was recently
linked to a possible takeover of Arsenal.
Last night, Paladini denied that a deal had been completed, saying: "I
wish it was true."
The move is unusual in that it involves a partnership between a
British and a foreign investor and comes on a day when two of English
football's most influential figures warned of the dangers of too much
foreign money coming into the domestic game.
With Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Manchester
City, Fulham, Portsmouth, Sunderland and West Ham all now having
non-English owners, Bolton chairman Phil Gartside voiced fears that
too much foreign investment will damage the Premier League.
He said: "The trouble is that the more foreign owners you get, the
greater the danger of the balance of power changing.
"Football, as it has been regulated for years, could be in danger. If
the foreignowned clubs gain a majority and decide to get together,
they could start to dictate how the league is run.
"Here at Bolton we are still classed as a club that is owned by its
roots, by people who still have a vested interest in making Bolton
successful and not purely for financial gains. That's the way we'd
like it to stay but, in reality, it's a difficult balance to achieve.
"Manchester City fans, for instance, probably aren't going to care
where their transfer funds come from if they see their club signing
players for big fees. 'We are not blind to exploring investment in the
club but we are also mindful of the future ownership and ensuring it
remains in the hands of people who are interested in the well-being of
Bolton.
"We would welcome investment, but it does matter where it comes from.
If the right offer was put on the table, we'd have to look at it
because we are mindful that we are custodians and not just owners. To
date, however, we have had no approaches."
Meanwhile, Sir Jack Hayward yesterday sold Wolves to Steve Morgan for
£10 - writing off the &£60m debt he accrued during his 17-year spell
in charge - and also took a swipe at the new foreign owners in the
Premier League, and Manchester City's Thaksin Shinawatra and West
Ham's Eggert Magnusson in particular.
He said: "I think the way clubs are going into foreign hands is very
bad indeed. That's why I'm so delighted that Steve is English. I
couldn't have sold to a foreigner. I didn't want a Siamese ex-prime
minister here, thank you very much. This is an English club.
"We did have one or two foreigners interested. We had the West Ham
crowd come in for half a day but luckily the sandwiches we served at
lunchtime were even worse than usual and it put them off."
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