Monday, March 3, 2008

QPR fans give thanks a billion times over

Bernie Ecclestone does not mince his words. "One thing’s for sure," he says. "If we owe anything, we pay it back."

Ecclestone, one of the wealthiest men in sport with an estimated fortune of £2.24 billion, was not referring to his family policy on monthly credit card repayments. The Formula One impresario was alluding to the debts he inherited when, along with Flavio Briatore, another of motor racing’s more colourful characters, he took over Queens Park Rangers.

Their arrival was greeted with rapture by long-suffering fans who in recent years have seen the club teeter from one calamity to another. The subsequent arrival of an even wealthier investor – Lakshmi Mittal, reputedly the world’s fifth-richest man – consolidated a new nickname for the club.


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