After the dramatic events which unfolded on the morning of Queens Park Rangers’ last match of the season when the club’s promotion to the Premier League was finally confirmed after the FA imposed a £875,000 fine rather than a heavy points deduction, Rangers’ fans could be forgiven for looking forward to a summer filled with hope and expectation about their first season back in the top flight since 1995-96. Yet with all the inevitability of an early F.A. Cup exit, the perma-tanned and expensively attired figure of Flavio Briatore lurched back into centre stage trailing the twin demons of chaos and misrule in his flamboyant wake.
Briatore had taken a back seat during last season’s Championship-winning season as Rangers vice-chairman Amit Bhatia, the son-in-law of Britain’s richest man and club co-owner Lakshmi Mittal, oversaw a period of relative stability at the club. The appointment of Neil Warnock as manager towards the latter part of the previous season has been attributed to Bhatia, and it was undoubtedly Warnock’s proven ability to mould a promotion-winning side that was responsible for Rangers’ success. The myth that because Rangers have extremely rich owners that they have bought their way out of the division is certainly fallacious; this was a typical Warnock side, only really embellished by the talents of Adel Taarabt who was a relatively cheap signing from Tottenham anyway.
So the news that Briatore is back at the helm, managing the day-to-day running of the club has been greeted by most supporters with disdain. It was the Italian who was responsible for the managerial merry-go-round at Loftus Road which preceded Warnock’s appointment, a period which saw the likes of Paulo Sousa, Jim Magilton, and Paul Hart attempt to manage both the side and Briatore’s ego. Whilst Briatore and co-owner Bernie Ecclestone’s acquisition of the club in August 2007 has to be seen as a boon considering Rangers’ parlous financial situation at the time and their return to the top flight, Briatore has frequently antagonized supporters by making no secret of his desire to glamorize (some would say tart up) the club.
The announcement of huge ticket price rises for next season means that many supporters will be priced out of the club’s return to the Premier League but Briatore is aware that the combination of the club’s limited ground capacity and London catchment area means that he should have no trouble attracting well-heeled casual supporters eager for any glimpse they can get of Premier League football. The suspicion is that Briatore is more concerned with these Premier League tourists than die-hard Rangers’ supporters.
Warnock’s future remains a subject of speculation too. Rangers are consistently linked with glamorous Italian names and one expects that if Sophia Loren became available, Warnock would be ousted in favour of the septuagenarian sex goddess. For Rangers’ fans the summer promises to be one of hoping against the expectation of Flavio’s reconstituted anarchy.
