The Times Mancini in QPR radar after Dowie axed
Iain Dowie was sacked after just 15 games in charge at Lotfus Road
-The strange-looking partnership between Iain Dowie and the
multimillionaire owners seeking to turn Queens Park Rangers into a
glamorous club came to a swift end yesterday as the manager was
sacked after only 15 matches in charge. It is hard to predict his
successor, given that Zinédine Zidane was being considered for the
role before it was offered to Dowie. Roberto Mancini and Roberto
Donadoni, the Italians, may enter the frame, as well as Terry
Venables, Sam Allardyce and Kenny Jackett, the Millwall manager.
Dowie took charge in May and led QPR to eight wins and three draws
and a tie against Manchester United in the Carling Cup next month,
but they have won only one of their past six Coca-Cola Championship
games and are ninth in the table. They drew 0-0 with Swansea City,
who played for more than an hour without a recognised goalkeeper, on
Tuesday.
Despite a pre-season pledge that they would be patient, the members
of the board are believed to have become concerned by the club's
recent downward turn in the league.
Dowie's was a surprise appointment but the board decided that his
track record as a talented motivator at Championship level made him
the right man to lead a promotion bid. The 43-year-old, a former
player at Loftus Road, became hot property after managing Crystal
Palace to promotion in 2004, but his reputation has been dented by
recent brief and unsuccessful roles. He suffered a financial hit last
year when he lost a High Court case brought by Palace over the
circumstances of his move to Charlton Athletic, a club he left in
November 2006 after only 12 league games. He moved on to Coventry
City, where he lasted almost a year, leaving in February with the
club just outside the relegation zone.
Independent
QPR set sights on Vialli and Mancini as Dowie is
dismissed for poor run
Queen's Park Rangers are looking for their fifth manager in 12 months
after Iain Dowie's brief reign came to a surprise end yesterday.
Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Mancini and the former Rangers manager Terry
Venables are among the early names linked with the role after the
chairman Flavio Briatore sacked Dowie just 12 games into the Coca-
Cola Championship season. Dowie, who was only appointed in May, took
charge of just 15 games in all competitions – the same number as his
spell at Charlton Athletic two years ago. QPR are ninth in the
Championship and in the last 16 of the Carling Cup, where they face
Manchester United at Old Trafford as reward for knocking out Aston
Villa in the third round. However, they have won just one of their
past six games, and were held to a goalless draw at Swansea City on
Tuesday despite the opposition playing for more than an hour with
defender Alan Tate in goal. Dowie was also reported to have clashed
with Briatore over the club's transfer policy, with the likes of
Damiano Tommasi, the 34-year-old Independent
Guardian Dowie sacked as Briatore flexes his muscles in QPR boardroomDavid
Hytner The Guardian, Saturday October 25 2008 Article historyFlavio
Briatore reasserted his authority in the Queens Park Rangers
boardroom yesterday by sacking Iain Dowie as manager. There has been
turmoil behind the scenes at the Championship club, where the
chairman, Briatore, clashed with the vice-chairman, Amit Bhatia,
after the latter released a personally signed statement pledging to
reduce ticket prices at Loftus Road.
Briatore telephoned Gianni Paladini to accuse the club's sporting
director of undermining him and promised he would be sacked.
Paladini, though, was spared at a meeting on Thursday attended by all
the major powers and Briatore instead turned the knife on Dowie.
The Italian has been unhappy with Dowie, who took over in May, for
some weeks and suspected the manager had criticised him behind his
back for a lack of support in the transfer market. Briatore helped to
bring a clutch of players to the club, including Daniel Parejo, who
is on loan from Real Madrid and on a huge contract by Championship
standards. But Parejo and Emmanuel Ledesma, who joined on loan from
Genoa, have not been in the starting line-up in recent games and
Damiano Tommasi, the Italian midfielder, has yet to make a first-team
appearance.
Briatore is understood to have suggested yesterday that Dowie ought
to start certain players in today's game at Reading. A disagreement
ensued and the club statement announcing the termination of Dowie's
contract with "immediate effect" swiftly followed. Gareth Ainsworth,
the veteran midfielder, will take caretaker charge against Reading
but he will not be the long-term appointment. The club have sounded
out Terry Venables and Steve Cotterill and the board are undecided
whether to go for a British or foreign coach. Early suggestions that
Roberto Mancini, the former Internazionale manager, will come in are
wide of the mark. Tommasi, having already been brought in, is a
possibility and so is Alan Curbishley, the former West Ham manager.
Briatore... who is supported on the QPR board by Bernie Ecclestone
and Bhatia, the son-in-law of Lakshmi Mittal, whose family owns 20%
of the club, now have a truce, but the possibility remains that the
Mittals will try to buy out Briatore and Ecclestone.
QPR have won one of their past six league matches and currently lie
ninth in the table.
Daily Mirror
QPR tycoon Flavio Briatore yesterday sacked boss Iain Dowie after a
huge row over the Italian dictating team selection.
Joint owner Briatore and Dowie have endured a rocky relationship
since the former Crystal Palace boss replaced Luigi De Canio in May.
The final straw came as Briatore handed Dowie a list of 11 players
and told him it was the QPR team for their game at Reading.
The side included Briatore's fellow Italians Samuel Di Carmine and
Matteo Alberti as well as Colombian-born kid Angelo Balanta. On-loan
Spaniard Daniel Parejo was also named, while key players like six-
goal English striker Dexter Blackstock were omitted.
Dowie refused to accept Briatore's demands and told the F1 Renault
team chief to sack him.
Veteran midfielder Gareth Ainsworth is in temporary charge, while
Terry Venables and ex-Inter Milan coach Roberto Mancini are being
touted as successors to Dowie.
The Sun Beautiful dream is turning ugly -
They had a beautiful dream — to turn unfashionable QPR into the
Premier League's must-have accessory.
- But yesterday the beautiful people turned the beautiful game ugly
as Iain Dowie was sacked as manager after less than six months in
charge.
You see, a real, genuine, dyed-in-the-wool football man at Loftus
Road is soooooooo last season, daaarlin'.
These days in W12 it is all about image.
And clearly Dowie's mug did not fit among all the make-up, mascara
and man-bags that can be found. It could be argued his sacking has
made him football's first fashion victim.
- But he is unlikely to be the last fatality in that corner of West
London where Trevor Francis tracksuits from a mush in Shepherd's Bush
are no longer considered the height of style.
- For if you scratch away at all the expensive cosmetics, phoney air
kisses and promises to lunch next week, you will uncover a football
club on the brink of imploding under the expectation and egos arising
from its new-found wealth.
- Put simply, QPR are a club at war. Yesterday, Dowie became its
first casualty — but there will be more.
- What makes this battle so bloody is that it is being waged by some
of the world's richest men behind the decaying facade of Loftus Road.
Well, they say you need money to fight a war. And this conflict has
billions.
- Wars also usually feature ruthless leadership and this one's no
different.
Co-owner and chairman Briatore is the millionaire Formula One playboy
who came to Rangers' rescue when he bought them for £14million in
December — with a little help from his pitlane pal Bernie Ecclestone.
But his desire to run the club in the same hands-on fashion as he
manages his Renault F1 team is turning Loftus Road into the pits. He
has already upset the Hoops' long-suffering fans.
And now his apparent determination to have total control over
everything he touches has led to Dowie's exit.
An insider claims the manager went because he showed he could no
longer stand being told what team he should pick by Briatore, the
club's majority shareholder.
- It appears the Italian has failed to grasp football clubs cannot be
run like F1 teams. Managers like Dowie won't tolerate being urged to
pick a team seconds before the players are due out on the pitch.
- Our source said he is determined to put his stamp on the club while
the supporters pray he will sell out to fellow shareholder Lakshmi
Mittal.
- Briatore persuaded the London-based Indian steel billionaire — the
world's fourth wealthiest man — to invest a fraction of his
£45billion fortune in a 20 per cent stake of QPR.
- Mittal and his family are bankrolling the club as debts pile up.
The likeable Indian tycoon — represented on the board by his son-in-
law Amit Bhatia — understands football, accepts coaches pick the team
and fans should be looked after for their loyalty.
- But Briatore's long-term plan seems to centre around attracting
wealthy West Londoners to a small niche stadium with excellent
hospitality. "Boutique football," Briatore calls it.
- He has apparently treated supporters with the same contempt he has
shown Dowie by hiking ticket prices and ordering season-ticket
holders out of seats they have sat in for years in order to make more
space for his corporate guests and celebrity chums, such as Campbell
and Beckwith.
- Briatore, 58, has said: "The first thing to remember is that
without us there was no QPR. I don't want everybody telling me what I
need to be doing.
"People believe the club is owned by the fans but it's only a few who
put their money down. For the rest of the people it's easy to
criticise when they maybe spend £20."
If only it was £20 to see Rangers these days. As part of a new
banding scheme Briatore introduced seven games into this season, the
cost of a ticket in Loftus Road's `Platinum' area for last month's
visit of Derby was FIFTY QUID.
He also tried to charge Rams fans the same amount for a seat in the
shoddy School End behind the goal.
-In a victory for football, the League ordered Rangers to charge
visiting fans the £30 that had been agreed before the start of the
season.
- Now QPR will have to find more cash to fund Dowie's successor.
- Peterborough's Darren Ferguson, Millwall's Kenny Jackett and former
Inter Milan boss Roberto Mancini have been linked with the post.
Last night, a QPR spokesman said: "We're in no position to
comment.The Sun
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