IT’S GETTING PRETTY FUNKY IN THERE
Can you smell that stench? No, for once it’s not The Fiver’s grundies. Honest! They were washed last week and they’re so squeaky clean that you could eat a steak dinner off them, while The Fiver has spent most of the day sniffing them to make sure. Sure, there have been a few concerned looks and the man from HR has been hovering for the past three hours, ready and waiting with a pair of tongs, but the point is the smell has nothing to do with The Fiver and everything to do with the foul odour emanating from the Queens Park Rangers dressing room, where, in a curious case of a rotten egg pointing out the mouldiness of its compatriots, Joey Barton has said that “one or two” bad eggs have ruined their season after their 6-0 shellacking at Manchester City sent them tailspinning into the Championship. It’s getting pretty funky in there. It cannot have been easy for Chris Ramsey to hold his nose while he was doing his team-talks.
Farewell, then, QPR, their relegation confirmed in the lamest manner imaginable. To be fair to the lads, for they are a great bunch of lads, it did take until the fourth minute before Sergio Agüero opened the floodgates for City. Let’s not be too harsh on them – even though QPR played with such gutlessness as if their players had played the entire match while wearing rat costumes, only taking a break from ducking out of challenges, misplacing passes, running into each other and giving away comical goals so that they could ask their agents to book them some swimming lessons in preparation for the mass jump off the sinking Loftus Road ship. In fact, they might as well have stood in front of their long-suffering supporters and formed a human middle finger. Unlike Burnley, QPR will not be missed.
And there will be no end to the farce yet, QPR’s plummet from the Premier League setting them on a collision course with the Football League, who are primed to slap them with a £58m fine for financial fair play breaches. The club submitted their accounts for the 2013-14 season to the League – they were promoted from the Championship that season – and what has the authorities in a tither is a £60m income injection classed as an “exceptional item” in the accounts which was to write off loans. Without that money from the club’s owners, the loss would have been £69.7m. According to people cleverer than The Fiver, the League’s position is that such equity injections by club owners are not permitted. Oh, QPR!
Yet unlike, say, QPR’s midfield, this one could run and run. QPR have vowed to challenge the legality of the fine, although let’s hope their lawyers don’t take any tips on defending from them. “Legal proceedings are ongoing as between Queens Park Rangers and the Football League,” a joint statement from QPR and the Football League said. “QPR challenges the legality of the Football League’s Championship financial fair play rules and any charge against QPR (if any) for breach of FFP Rules shall not be commenced pending the outcome of that challenge. The proceedings are confidential in nature and neither party is entitled to comment upon the proceedings until the independent arbitral panel has delivered its decision.”
At least QPR’s fans will have had their pain soothed this morning by hearing Harry Redknapp’s take on their predicament and if there is one thing we can all agree on, it is surely that no one begrudges him not having a third relegation added to his CV. T’riffic! “The thing they have got in their favour is they have a fantastic chairman, a good board, and they have got good supporters as well, who are very loyal to the club,” Redknapp y’knowed. “But you have to be realistic. Nine of the 11 were playing in the Championship last year and, at the end of the day, we fell short. We weren’t good enough.”
Hmm. We’ll have to end it here, The Fiver’s knee is starting to hurt.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT
Join Jacob Steinberg from 8pm BST for MBM coverage of Arsenal 2-0 Swansea.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I went for a fist pump while jumping up at the same time. The next thing I knew I had gone through the ceiling” – Ipswich fan Ross Morgan got a bit too excited after Paul Anderson scored the equaliser in the Championship play-off semi-final against Norwich. Lucky for him, Anderson has offered to foot the bill to the damaged ceiling.
QUOTE OF THE DAY II
“I thought there would be a proper hullabaloo in the media if the gent in question were to be shot” – Peter Mangs, a Swedish gunman behind a string of shootings between 2003 and 2010 in Malmo, has claimed he once came close to shooting the footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic for parking illegally.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
There’s a packed pod for Football Weekly today, with AC Jimbo joined by Barry Glendenning, Philippe Auclair, Raphael Honigstein and Michael Hann.
Football Weekly is heading to Manchester! Join AC Jimbo, Barry Glendenning, Iain Macintosh and James Horncastle for a special end of season spectacular on Wednesday 3 June. Get your tickets here!
FIVER LETTERS
“Was surprised that you used a picture from Mayweather-Pacqiao on Friday. Surely first dibs on athletes wandering around aimlessly for the prescribed allotment of time before trousering a huge paycheck belongs to the Fiver’s Vespa-riding, espresso-sipping, ice-cream hawking, greasy haired, tightly trousered Italian cousin La Cinque” – Christopher Smith.
“May I be the first of at least 1,056 other pedants to query how QPR’s goalkeeper Rob Green is involved in the West Ham v Everton melee? Surely turning out for the wrong team must be his most calamitous footballing moment to date…. Oh wait” – Mike Pearson
“My husband, who grew up on a farm, now claims to have used a “mini front-end loader called a Bobcat” (a junior version of a bulldozer that is steered on the same principle) to clean out chicken houses. He confirms Jon Axon’s statement that pushing the right-hand lever forward & pulling the left-hand one back would cause a bulldozer to turn left, but adds that it would likely continue to pivot &, in his words, “spin in a circle.” For a gentler left turn “such as you would make in a car,” he recommends pushing the right-hand lever forward & leaving the left in neutral. Given his professed inability for the last ten years to steer heavy wheeled suitcases, luggage carts, supermarket trolleys and vacuum cleaners, he clearly has experience of spinning something, very likely agricultural” – Ann W. Hall.
Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is Ann W. Hall.
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BITS AND BOBS
Pep Guardiola, just in case he hasn’t been clear enough about this from the moment he signed his three-year-contract at Bayern Munich, will be staying at Bayern Munich until the end of his three-year contract. “I’ve already said 200 million times - I’ll be here next season. That’s it,” tooted Pep.
Chelsea’s all-round defensive hardman Branislav Ivanovic reckons that despite José Mourinho’s complete lack of track record of giving game-time to anyone younger than Samuel Eto’o, the Special One will play his special kids next season. Or at least in the next two meaningless games against West Brom and Sunderland. “In my opinion we have a great generation of young players,” honked Ivanovic.
QPR defender Clint Hill believes that, even though he oversaw QPR’s plummet back to the Championship, Loftus Road nice guy Chris Ramsey should get the chance to lead QPR back up to the Premier League. And then back down again.
Any Spurs or Liverpool fans who are crazy/keen enough to follow their teams to Malaysia this summer? Any Spurs or Liverpool fans crazy/keen enough to follow their teams to Malaysia this summer and want to mingle with the locals? You’ll have to be doing it outside the stadium as some fans there want a boycott because the games may disrupt the national team’s preparations for the World Cup qualifiers against East Timor and Palestine. Is this the moment the global game finally reached saturation point?
Preston supporters were so happy at reaching Wembley for the League One play-off final that they allegedly beat up the Chesterfield captain, Ian Evatt, even though they’d just beaten his side 4-1 on aggregate. One man has been arrested on suspicion of assault.
The Bradford City manager, Phil Parkinson, and his captain, Stephen Darby, were among the 1,000 plus crowd who gathered to remember the 56 football fans who died 30 years ago in the Bradford City fire.
STILL WANT MORE?
Is Paul Pogba set to earn £250,000 per week after tax at Manchester City? The Rumour Mill has the answer.
Are Hernanes and Mattia Destro bringing the ex factor to Serie A’s Champions League race? Paolo Bandini has the answer.
Are Barcelona about to rule La Liga once again after Real Madrid’s latest falter? Sid Lowe has the answer.
Why are Schalke getting their moment in the sun for all the wrong reasons? Raphael Honigstein has the answer.
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