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Well done Bee's, I'm still in shock at the awesome comeback that has saved my club from relegation.

Woooooooooo!!!! I shouted, sung and screamed at Underhill today. Verry verry happy at the result and verrrry relieved! Only just about to stop celebrating :)

As a Forest fan, it makes no difference to us if QPR had been deducted points or not but I'm still not happy that they weren't.

The FA's ruling has given a green light to any multi-millionaire to buy a club, break whatever rules they want and then get fined pocket change. QPR have the richest owner of any club in the whole world so a £875,000 fine hurts them as much as the average person being fined £10.

I have some sympathy for gtwr's comment and understand where it's coming from - though one should note that the FA verdict was that QPR were "Not Guilty" on 5 of the 7 counts and "Guilty on a technicality" on the other two. To deny a club promotion when they have been far and away the best team in the league on those grounds would be harsh indeed.

But the FA made their dilemma 100 times worse by their own crass incompetence. Why this was not sorted out far more quickly, well away from the end of season drama, I do not know. Of all the weeks to hold the inquiry and announce a verdict, the last one of the regular season was a strange one to choose.

More fundamentally, the FA have singularly failed to find a punishment that fits the crime for clubs that transgress their rule book. Points deductions are simply not fit for purpose:

- they are a blunt weapon which vary between irrelevant (if they merely move a club around mid-table) and draconian (if they result in clubs moving to different divisions) in a wholly capricious way;

- they affect other clubs as well as the one in question (if a club is denied promotion or given relegation because of a points deduction, then one other club has at random been awarded either promotion or safety without any justification);

- and above all they hurt the wrong people, the fans and players.

The sooner the FA and Football League find a better, more targeted and fairer way of punishing directors who break their rules the better.

PS Any truth in the rumour that the FA did not deduct any points simply because they could not face the resulting mayhem, appeals, counter-suits and chaos in the play-offs, not to mention the criticisms they would certainly get for leaving the decision to the very last day of the season?

One last thought: why should breaking FA rules ever result in Football LEAGUE points being deducted? Spare a thought for the officials of the Football League who have also had their big day - the award of the FL Championship trophy - mucked about by the incompetence of the FA.

I am sure they decided to go ahead with awarding QPR the trophy at Loftus Road because otherwise it would have happened in a boardroom somewhere with no publicity. Not good for the Football League or their sponsors.

It is not only QPR who were affected by the FA's gross incompetence.

It would be very unfair for Warnock had QPR been deducted points when West Ham had been given a fine for the same reason. Titles must be won on the pitch and QPR were the best team in the Championship this season by a distance.

I'm not surprised the F.A. didn't create procedures to ensure the Tevez incident never occurred again. It's in their hands to set procedures before allowing a player to play for an English team. Yet, unsurprisingly, nobody asks them why.

The BIGGEST whining and cry person of all when West Ham were not deducted points was Neil Warnock. Shock horror, he is very quite about losing points now.

With this verdict it means you can cheat if you want because you will only be fined, which is of course peanuts to what you are going to recieve from promotion.

Warnock should be ashamed of himself and publicly had back his winners medal or eat humble pie and say sorry to West Ham. And football in general.

@ 7, Jay,

are you serious?

West Ham fans will like to know how before there were any rules brought in for third party ownership of players it ended cost our club £30 million.

While Warnock's QPR walk away with hardly a slap on the wrist after the rules and have been written.


That's a genuine question by the way.

The silence by the media on this compared to their Tevez campaign has been truly golden.

I wonder how clubs like Luton feel about this decision as well.

As a Chelsea fan, I can't wait to get to Loftus Road next season for a proper derby!

As a Leeds fan in Australia I watched the QPR-Leeds game last night and congratulate QPR on being promoted they have been far and away the best side this year. Leeds have done better than I expected to be honest and I hope they will go close to promotion next year.

On the FA though, I have to be honest and say that if a club outside of London had done what QPR is supposed to have done I'm sure points would have been deducted. WHU got away with it now it's QPR's turn, one has to feel sympathy for Luton, Sheff Utd, Southampton and even Portsmouth (and I'm not even going to mention Leeds) when it comes to points deduction. Each of these clubs have suffered either directly because of misdemeaners leading to points deductions or the lack of the culprits being deducted points - look at poor Sheff Utd now as a direct result of the FA's ineptitude in dealing properly with WHU.

I feel sorry for QPR's fans because like WHU's they are likely to be tarred by the ineptitude of the FA's decision on this matter for years to come along with the lingering jealousies these decisions (or lack of them) bring to fans of other clubs.

Despite my comments above, I truly wish QPR and their fans the best of luck next season in the Premiership.

There were no rules against third party ownership of players when West Ham were fined by the PL £5.5 million and had to pay £25 million in compensation to Sheff Utd.

The FA brought these rules in post Tevez and the FA look to have bottled the decision with regards QPR.

I am fed up with all these people saying that QPR have 'got away with it' and that because we are a 'rich' club that the rules are different for us. Have any of these people actually read the FA findings or even know what the club (as opposed to third party individuals) were charged with. Fair enough some of the charges were quite severe but the club were found Not Guilty of five of the seven charges and those we were guilty of were very minor. If I was charged with Murder, Armed robbery and forgetting to return an Asda trolley (in places that still dont have those annoying magnets) and the court said, 'oh sorry sir we made a mistake, the murder and robbery were not you but you will have to answer for that trolley!' Then by most people on these boards logic I would still be facing life imprisonment.

The amount of resentment for a club which has just been proven to have done nothing wrong to any degree of severity is quite astounding. They have been by far the best team in the league this season and along with Norwich are truly deserved of their place in the EPL.

As for Swansea now considering legal action, frankly its embarrassing and pathetic and screams of desperation, 'oh we were not good enough but still, we really want to be up there so bad'. Its like the weird kid at school eating worms to try and get an invite to the cool kids party.

Richard (Congo)

I full agree with gwtr at #3

clubs have money - break rules and escape points deduction

clubs dont have money and have points deducted - luton, southampton, plymouth to name just 3

coincidence - i think not - maybe the FA are frightened of being tied up in court by the lawyers that QPR and before them West Ham could afford.

i hope that West Ham are relegated otherwise in my opinion the premiership will be very tainted next year with 2 teams that are only there because the FA didn't fully enforce its own rules

All the talk seems to be about the comparison between the QPR and West Ham decisions. A much more relevant comparison is with Luton who were docked 10 points for agent infringements. The effect on Luton can be seen from their current plight. It is a prerequisite of justice that there is consistency. Consequently, either the FA got it wrong in the Luton case or in the case of QPR. If it is the former, then Luton should immediately commence legal proceedings against both the FA and their directors individually (for breach of fiduciary duty). If it is the latter, then Swansea should commence similar proceedings. If Swansea fail to start such proceedings their directors should be investigated for failing to discharge their legal duties. The FA, by this inconsistency (and I make no judgement on which decision was right - only that both cannot be right) has shown it is no better than the dregs who run FIFA.

Well done Barnet! Lets go for promotion next year!!

As an Imps fan naturally I am disappointed, but well done Barnet. They did well to dig themselves out of the relegation zone.

I am disappointed generally by the Ö÷²¥´óÐã coverage of my team. I often have a look at the bbc website to see what is happening in the football league (not anymore I suppose) and despite the rollercoaster ride we have experienced this year, hardly a mention has been made of us with it mainly being the more fashionable clubs. If it is not a big place then it seems to be forgotten or just pushed aside and in our case with a frankly less than revealing piece of journalism on a game last week.

Well done Barnet and at least now I will be no longer surprised that it won't be written about when it comes to the Imps.

The FA have handled this case extremely badly and to have it decided 45 minutes before the end of the season raises serious questions. It should have been dealt with earlier in the season, and then there could have been confidence in the independence and validity of the decision.

Swansea are completely right in raising questions in how this was handled, and that questions do need to be answered. There is a real sense that if another club was involved the media attention would have been fair difference, and certainly I would think that if it wasn't for the rich benefactors at QPR, there might been a different decision.

Such a paltry fine and no pts deduction (ensuring they remain as Champions) seems grossly unfair and disproportionate compared to penalties dished out to other clubs.

However QPR deserve promotion as they have had more points on the pitch this season.

I cannot really see any appeal as we do not have the resources of QPR, but there should be assurances as to how the whole issue was handled.

As for QPR getting the trophy, when we were promoted 3 yrs ago, we never had the trophy to parade before our fans, because of the Lees fiasco (and we did end up 16pts clear), so QPR fans should count themselves lucky.

As a Forest fan, I fully agree with Hoopsididitagain at #13. The facts are that QPR were not guilty of 5 of the charges, and guilty on a technicality for the other 2.
Money has nothing to do with it. They were the best team in the league by a mile, haven't bought their way to the championship, and deserve to be going up. End of story.

Good luck to them in the Premiership. Fingers crossed we can break our playoff hoodoo, and join them there.

Those who are comparing the West Ham and Luton cases are way off the mark. There were no rules about 3rd party ownership when West Ham were 'charged', their 'crime' was lying about it to the inquiry. Luton had around 50 separate charges to answer relating to unauthorised agents, QPR had one (an agent who was FIFA registered).

QPR were cleared on all 3rd party charges, guilty of the ubiquitous 'Bringing the game into disrepute' £800,000 and 'Using an unauthorised agent' £75,000.

As Neil warnock stated, never let the facts get in the way of a good story!

In reply to 13 do you honestly believe that if the situation was reversed, QPR directors would not be looking into the situation now, they would be wrong if they didn't do so.

If Luton Town could afford to go to the High Court I'm sure they would but as it is they struggle to break even and if they were to lose the case that would probably be the end of the club.

you can't compare the tevez saga with forlan at qpr.

Most obvious is tevez played a direct role and there was an argument that without tevez west ham would never of stayed up. The same cannot be said for qpr, it's a totally different argument. This years achievement should not be susceptible to a technicality that took place, with little benefit tot the team, on a previous season.

All of those crying for points deduction, bitter, jealous that cant ad
it their team is not good enough!

21. At 11:38am 8th May 2011, JACKTWO wrote:
In reply to 13 do you honestly believe that if the situation was reversed, QPR directors would not be looking into the situation now, they would be wrong if they

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Does that make it right?

re #23 - a points deduction for QPR would not affect my team so your final sentence doesnt apply.

what i want is consistency - if rules are broken points should be deducted from each team that breaks the rules not just those that can't afford to pay a heavy fine or employ expensive lawyers. QPR and West Ham have both been unjustly spared points deductions that have been handed out (sometimes excessively) to other teams

In reply to 23.

One point the Swans Chairman also raised, which is entirely fair, if QPR essentially did not do much wrong, why on earth couldn't it have been settled earlier in the season.

And Why did the FA make such of a mess of the investigation.

This dragging on really hasn't helped anyone, least of all QPR fans.

I wonder if QPR find themselves in a reversed situation whether their fans would have the same attitude.

At least I have said consistently that QPR deserve to go up on the basis on their on the pitch performance.

All the anti-QPR commentators here have clearly NOT READ what the club was found guilty of, which was (1) using an unlicensed agent (that agent was licensed by other football associations, however) and as a result of that, (2) bringing the game into disrepute, which brought the frankly ludicrous £800K fine. That's it. They were found not guilty of any charge to do with illegally registered or owned players. No "cheating", no gaining unfair advantages. So unless you've got a point to make that is actually relevant to the facts, as opposed to what you want to imagine happened, because of some anti-FA or anti-QPR grudge you hold – butt out.

#27 - does that include Mark Palios who as ex-chief executive of the FA would know much more about what has gone on that any of us commenting here - seems he still thinks points should have been deducted

From reading an awful lot about the situation over the last week, the alleged crux of the delay in settling the issue seems to have been that the FA simply didn't believe the answers that QPR gave them about the transfer.

Again allegedly, QPR may have over-inflated the transfer fee in the press to make the signing look more ambitous than it actually was. The widely quoted figure at the time was for 'the deal being worth £3.5m' It seems this may have included so many add ons and possibly even Faurlin's wages and I don't think any Rangers fan was fooled at the time. However, upon investigation, it appears that the FA could see only £600k paid to Faurlin's previous owners and asked Rangers to clarify where the rest went. When told that the £3.5m wasn't accurate, it seems that the FA did not believe it; thought the worst and the rest, as they say, is history (or is that hysteria?).

Whether the FA ever had any evidence other than a strong hunch is not clear, but they obviously did not have enough evidence to convict and I can at last celebrate our return to The Prem :-)

Well done Barnet
The players were excellent.
Now Tony Kleanthos has to learn from his mistakes of this season and be aware not to appoint a manager who has a recent poor record, as he did with Mark Stimson.
Do not release players before a manager is appointed, like last year. Take a serious look at appointing Guiliano Grazioli along with Lawrie Sanchez. A rookie manager needs expert back up. (Or Lawrie with Graz as his assistant) Graz will make a good manager if he is taught right and has the right team behind him. Also you have to keep the better players and try to get those loanees who have done the most to keep the team up.

Well done QPR, as a Londoner I like to see our teams do well. It's mighty funny how a player signed in 2009 incites the talk of a points deduction in 2011 when the club is promoted. If you had finished 8th nothing would have been said.

#28 Charlie:
From reading about Palios, I think he allegedly has fewer friends left at the FA than you or I! Consequently, I think his (unhelpful) comments were wide of the mark and may reflect more on some unfinished business of his with the FA rather than any deep knowledge of the evidence.

However, that's just my opinion from trying to take a balanced look at the events of the last week or so.

My final word on this, this should have been dealt with a lot sooner, and none of this mess would have happened.

Good Luck to QPR in the Premier League next season, apart from you play us. (crossing fingers for the play-offs)

QPR should appeal the disrepute fine. If anyone has brought the game into disrepute it is the FA and Football League by their handling of this. Any QPR mistakes were sanctioned by that body and the Judgement leaves an implication of guilt with the warning about future behaviour. Either QPR were innocent of the other charges or not. The disrepute judgement is a spiteful response from the failure to prove the other charges. But it was a great day at Loftus Road and how the players kept themselves together in recent weeks is amazing. The result was unimportant. Some very sloppy journalism has also been in evidence. Looking for facts was not part of it. So roll on next season!!!

Anyone who bleats about QPR not being given a just punishment doesn't know the facts and reads too many toilet paper substitutes with red banners across the top and named after things in the sky.

Palios knows about as much about this as anyone else that was not at the tribunal. OK he used to work at the FA but he knows nothing. He is basing his outrageous claims on assumptions, as are most of the whining clubs on here. It's the rich clubs, it's the London clubs (apparently Luton are too far away from London to be given favouritism even though an airport in the city has the London prefix), it's any bloody excuse for fans of under-performing teams to have a moan about something.

Why not take your hate out on the FA, who took five months to muster up enough evidence on this case to charge us with, and then another two months to set a date. They well and truly screwed up the season run-in for about half the teams in the Championship as no-one knew what they were chasing. That, and they completely messed up the celebrations of a club whose fans have gone through hell in the last ten or fifteen years.

The FA should fine itself for "bringing the game into disrepute" with the farcical way they went about this case. If there was a million pound fine at the end of it, why did they take seven months to get it? Absolutely ridiculous.

I find it pathetic that people who know nothing about this are kicking up a fuss, as it turns out, what we were found guilty of was only a fineable offense! Swansea were happy to say nothing before the game as Cardiff complained about percieve injustices (gleefully forgetting they too are in heat about their own third party issues aswell as the fact they've had an unfair advantage with the Welsh FA letting them off the hook time & time again) and now the 2 have swapped positions Cardiff are now keeping shut and Swansea are kicking up a fuss, to me, this is just a desperate attempt to get in the premier league, which now, given that we are not guilty of "cheating", seems hugely ironic
As for Mark Palios' comments, he knew about as much as the rest of us, he was not involved in the hearing or investigation, it was his opportunity for cheap publicity as Warnock has said. And talking of "poor" Sheffield United, i know the whole Tevez thing was hugely unfair, but they bottled it then and then further bottled attempts of return to the Premier League with the parachute payments and on top of that £30 million from the whole Tevez issue, the Blades blew it and it's no one's fault but theirs that they now find themselves in League 1, there's only so much sympathy i can have for them

I'm confused, Paul. You went to Underhill by car, then took the Tube home?

Paul - love that you didn't know where the tube stop was: it's as close as Arsenal station is to the Emirates! Cracking atmosphere at the ground and already looking forward to the start of the season warm up fixture between the Bees & the Gunners.

Just next year, hope your visit isn't because the Bees have stayed up on the last day of the season!

Im getting sick and tired of people saying things like rich clubs can do what they like re: cheating. QPR's owners are rich not the club themselves!

Secondly, Southampton, Plymouth, Leeds etc were docked points because of the rule set up by the FA about administration.

I agree with many supporters about timing but we know the FA are useless so stop whining its all over and done with now.

Please allow us Rangers fans to enjoy our moment!

Good luck to the play off teams!

I don't think any team has received points deductions for using an unregistered agent (but who has apparently since been registered and was apparently registered by FIFA at the time) and by doing so bringing the game into disrepute, it'd be petty to give a points deduction for those offences i'd have thought

#39 ... and therein lies the point Paul; QPR were NOT found guilty of similar offences to either Luton, Swindon or West Ham, as they were cleared of all the issues surrounding 3rd party involvement and providing false documentation.

QPR were found guilty of bringing the game into disrepute (£800k fine) and using an agent registered by FIFA, but not by the FA (£75k fine).

I have to laugh at accusations of 'big club bias', as I have spent the last 35 years with rival fans taking the mickey out of QPR for being a small club. I guess you can't win sometimes :-)

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@6, 11 & 19.

The best side by a distance? A very small distance - 4 points that would have been 2 had Norwich not been getting ready for the party at full time.

I still can't help thinking the FA bit the bullet and 'pulled' the inquiry, just so it would be finished before the season finished, and that had the inquiry taken place in November or December we'd have had a different outcome and final points tallies.

Are you joking me??????

My post was removed because of?



So tell me why QPR have not been found guilty on the charges?

Nothing published. Joke.

Or you can say if it wasn't for the inquiry in the back of the players minds then the margin would be slightly larger
And i'm not sure if they have gone to a quick conclusion, they took way to long to come up with a decision in my opinion

yeah 2 all u people slating qpr, is it really fair to dock us points after being the best team in the league all season? And wait plymouth and luton were deducted for completely different things! And anyway, we were only fined 'cause of the FA's petty rules. Does it matter if the agent's not registered with the FA? Can FIFA be that untrustworthy?

Phew, now that's off my chest.

#47 'Does it matter if the agent's not registered with the FA? Can FIFA be that untrustworthy?'

So from that I guess the FA is bigger then the Football League? It was the 3rd party rules from the FA that were broken..............

Jay #48 & #44. The judgement from the FA that you kindly linked to shows that QPR were found to have breached rule E3, which relates to bringing the game into disrepute and HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH 3RD PARTY OWNERSHIP. The link also shows that the second rule broken was A1; the use of non-licensed agents. Again, this HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH 3RD PARTY OWNERSHIP. The charge that relate to 3rd party ownership were among the other 5 charges that QPR were found to be NOT GUILTY of.

I hope that has cleared it up for you.

I believe there are two issues surrounding QPR and the FA's tendancy to give points deductions.
1) QPR were found not guilty of virtually everything. Using an agent that was FIFA registered but not registered by the FA is verging on the pathetic. In essence, the FA made ill-informed charges and handles them so badly they brought the game into disrepute.
2) Why do the FA deduct points from clubs in deep financial trouble? I would prefer to see the FA helping to sort out the problems rather than making matters worse by deducting points that can lead to relegation and increased financial difficulties.

The QPR case has shown the FA in a very poor light. The FA should be paying fines to all the clubs involved in the Championship promotion race for clouding the issue for a rediculous length of time with virtually no basis.

The FA have again shown how inept they are as an organization and almost ruined what has been a highly entertaining Football League season. I've come to enjoy following the highlights of the Championship games as well as some League 1 and 2 games in NZ - the standard isn't as great as the Premiership but similar to Australia's A-League over here. Disappointed that Leeds didn't go up this season but I think they'll do it next season under Simon Grayson albeit they'll have to contend with the Hammers and Latics.

15. At 09:59am 8th May 2011, alb1on wrote:
All the talk seems to be about the comparison between the QPR and West Ham decisions. A much more relevant comparison is with Luton who were docked 10 points for agent infringements. The effect on Luton can be seen from their current plight. It is a prerequisite of justice that there is consistency.
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The problem is that you are assuming that QPR and Luton committed exactly the same offences.

Luton were found guilty of 15 charges of misconduct, while QPR were found guilty of 2 different offences of the 7 charges laid against them.

Anbody remember when Middlesbrough went down because of a points deduction after their no-show... instead of giving Blackburn 3 pts?

The FA messed up then as well after providing the club with incorrect advice.

Joke.

So QPR didn't sign a player owned by a third party against FA regulations then?

I think part of the problem with the QPR situation is that the timing of it means some fans can't help but feel that the enquiry essentially 'bottled it'. It's easy to suspect the FA found the club not guilty of the main charges so they could avoid the massive fall out that would entail, but slapped them with a decent-sized fine for the minor charges just so they could justify the whole storm they'd kicked up by having the enquiry in the first place.

While I don't necessarily agree with this view, I can see why some fans are dubious about the not guilty verdict and why QPR fans think the fine they've been given is a bit harsh.

Whichever view you take though, I can't help feel that the whole affair (which has nothing to do with the game on the pitch) brings the game into disrepute and that the football authorities need to take the lion's share of the blame for doing their dirty laundry in public with such atrocious timing.

54. At 12:11pm 9th May 2011, beckton01 wrote:
So QPR didn't sign a player owned by a third party against FA regulations then?


No, Rangers were found not guilty of all charges relating third party ownership. Please read the rest of the posts and spread the word.

No, Rangers were found not guilty of all charges relating third party ownership. Please read the rest of the posts and spread the word.


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Bingo!!

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#43 Careful! By the same logic, QPR get all three points from that Leeds game, and when you consider the immense pressure on the players due to the wrongful accusations, and every Tom, Dick and Harry who knew none of the facts throwing in their tuppence about massive points deductions, surely Rangers' achievement is even greater than the story the table tells. We gained 1-2 points on the chasing pack per month between October and February, then when the wrongful accusations broke in early March we began losing that margin again. I - as a fan - couldn't sleep Friday night, so I don't know how the players ever did! Who knows how far ahead we could have finished?!
And they fined US for bringing the game into disrepute...

and #28 yes, that includes Palios. He who spent 2 days bleating about how we should be punished, then after Saturday, started bleating again - that he didn't know the facts all along. See above, re. Tom, Dick and Harry. Attention seeker.

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In my opinion i think that QPR were the best team in the championship, but as they broke the rules they deserved to get a bigger fine or get at least 5-10 points deducted. In the past Westham lost over £30million for the Tevez issue for surviving in the premiership, with that money they could of invested in to the team instead of selling their best players if the get the drop this season.

Simple question, was Faurlin rights owned by a third party when he signed for QPR?



If he was and and it was against FA regs, how were they found not guilty of the charge?

#64 Simple question & simple answer; When Faurlin was signed in 2009, his rights were seemingly owned by a 3rd party, but this was allowed under Football League rules at the time. When the Football League introduced its own 3rd party rules last summer, QPR brought the Faurlin situation to the FL's attention and bought out the 3rd party interest to comply with the change in legislation.

Interestingly, the FAW (under whose jurisdiction Cardiff and Swansea fall) still do not have 3rd party ownership rules and the team that would have benefitted most from a points deduction could not therefore be charged for the same offences that QPR were...

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