Fulham & QPR Could Share Stadium

[White Noise]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/8797924/Queens-Park-Rangers-and-Fulham-could-consider-sharing-a-new-stadium.html


Queens Park Rangers and Fulham could consider sharing a new stadium


Queens Park Rangers visit Craven Cottage on Sunday for a west London derby, but is there a chance that the two Premier League clubs may eventually share a bespoke new stadium? It seems so.



Thumbs up: Could Tony Fernandes relocate QPR and share with Fulham? Photo: AFP By Jason Burt


11:00PM BST 29 Sep 2011


1 Comment


They have shared before, of course, with Fulham the tenants at Loftus Road for two seasons between 2002 and 2004 while Craven Cottage was redeveloped after plans for an ambitious new ground had been shelved.

Going even further back, in the late 1980s, there was even a scheme by the club's then owners to sell off the Cottage and merge the two clubs as Fulham Park Rangers and play at Loftus Road.

That plan, after understandable hostility, was quickly dropped.

However new QPR chairman Tony Fernandes has identified that with a stadium at a capacity of just 18,300 and with limited facilities and no real hope of redeveloping the existing ground, his club have to move. And quickly.

It helps that QPR are well located within London with parcels of land available nearby, partly opened up by the BBC's Salford relocation and the huge Westfield shopping development. Indeed Fernandes has already candidly floated the idea of not just moving but sharing.

Some have assumed that this would entail a deal with Chelsea, who have been considering for some time whether to quit Stamford Bridge and have received approaches ever since Roman Abramovich acquired the club.

It is believed that QPR would like to examine whether an initial 30,000-capacity stadium would work for them and there has even been the idea of building a slightly larger arena and trying to offer discounted tickets to watch the other team that occupies it, and vice-versa.

The attitude of Fulham owner Mohamed Fayed is key, of course, to the possibility of a ground-share. He would encounter opposition to re-developing the Craven Cottage site for commercial use from the local council, as he has found out before, while there is no suggestion that right now he would be even interested in discussing a new stadium.

But given the proximity of both clubs, 2.5 miles apart, and given their similar fan-bases and the challenges they face to stay in the Premier League and compete, it would be surprising if, come Sunday, there isn't even the slightest suggestion of a collaboration in the pre-match hospitality.

[MJG]

Have I woken up in 1987?

[JBH]

No effing way  096.gig

[mrska]

Lazy journalism  i hope...

[TonyGilroy]

I don't think it claims to be anything other than guesswork but it remains a fact that if either FFC or QPR aspire to be more than they presently are a bigger stadium is essential and proximity gives sense to sharing.

I've never had a problem with this in principle but very large numbers of Fulham supporters do and for MAF to embark on that course of action would be very high risk. My guess is that he was up for that 10 years ago but not now.

Were he to sell though ambitious new owners might well think differently and I can see this as part of such a sale package.

[Burt]

It does look like lazy jouralism in that there are no directly attributed quotes etc.

But I suspect it is on the agenda, as it does pop up from time to time, and with a new Chairman at the helm at QPR it seems a natural time for this to crop up once more.

As ever with footballing matters there are two sides to this.

First is the emotional side - no way will fans from either club want this to go through.

Then there is the business side - where some form of ground share probably makes a great deal of sense, not just in terms of economies of scale for the current (capped) size of both clubs but also as a potential platform for growth.

[DevonFFC]

 I think for me personally this idea is completley dependant on location!! I do not have a problem with a ground share as it makes great sense for both clubs, allows for expansion however ruduces the risk. I feel if it is close enough to our current stadium and not completly out the area of fulham then I wouldn't care to much. Yeah we lose the history and herotige that the cottage has given us but its a new chapter in our history. Many like my self call for a revamp at the cottage, extra seats but I think really this is the best option as to modernise the cottage would take vast amounts of money and a complete over haul. Transport is another issue for me, with the tube being a farce for travelling fans and no where to park.

I guess I could say I'm keen on the idea!

[HillingdonFFC]

I think for me personally this idea is completley dependant on location!! I do not have a problem with a ground share as it makes great sense for both clubs, allows for expansion however ruduces the risk. I feel if it is close enough to our current stadium and not completly out the area of fulham then I wouldn't care to much. Yeah we lose the history and herotige that the cottage has given us but its a new chapter in our history. Many like my self call for a revamp at the cottage, extra seats but I think really this is the best option as to modernise the cottage would take vast amounts of money and a complete over haul. Transport is another issue for me, with the tube being a farce for travelling fans and no where to park.

I guess I could say I'm keen on the idea!




Really ?, well no disrespect to you but I would sincerely hope you`re in the minority. Why on earth would we want to play in White City, spitting distance from Loftus Road?, yes its the same borough but its not a Fulham area, it could be on the other side of London. We would eventually be junior partners in Rangers back yard. I would never watch Fulham there, infact Craven Cottage means that much to me I couldnt bring myself to watch us anywhere else.
Something else, I wouldnt totally dismiss this article because a Rangers friend who knows someone connected to the board told me about this six months ago and I posted in on TIFF, he`d said there had even been meetings between the clubs??

[Rambling_Syd_Rumpo]

at some point in the future it will come down to this,do you want to stay at the Cottage and slip out of the Prem possibly never to return OR move from the Cottage to expand the fan base to give to a better chance to move forward,grow and hopefully stay in the Prem for many years to come???
We are playing a very fine balancing act at the moment and we don't know what the future will bring(new owners ect).I don't want to leave the Cottage but I think we are running out of options,we can't expand much more at the Cottage,we need better transport link/parking,better changing rooms and facilities for players officials and fans and I think the old girl has been refurbished as much as she can take.I want to stay at the Cottage,it's home after all but I think push will come to shove at some point soon.

[AlFayedsChequebook]

Bizarrely I had a dream last night about Fulham moving to a new stadium that was a ground share with QPR. It was still in central london, but on top of a hill (dont ask) and was a meccano style boring stadium.

Sharing with QPR would inevitably mean moving to a site near loftus road. Whilst it would be good to get a boost from ticket sales etc, I would hate to then play in a new, half empty stadium in the championship if we were to get relegated. Imagine if we moved in with QPR, got relegated and they just stole all of our recently acquired fans?

[dgnffc]

In response to the title of this thread - No we couldn't!

[Burt]

There is always an emotional reaction at play...

The bottom line for me though is I have been following Fulham "man and boy" since 1974, and if we had to move location so long as it is not something daft (like Wimbledon's move to Milton Keynes) then I would continue to follow the Whites.

The only reason I would stop following the team would be not so much related to moving to a new ground (painful though this would be as Craven Cottage is unique and I love the place) but if we had to merge with another club (that would be too much).

[HillingdonFFC]

Why do a lot of people think that moving there to a larger stadium is automatically going to increase our fan base??, its absolute b*llocks. Increase QPRs? yes ,ours no. A lot of die hards wont go, plain and simple. Where are these hordes of new fans,  coming from?. Popular opinion seems to indicate we draw the bulk of our support from South West London/Surrey are they going to be happy?,because 2.5 miles in London is a long way. We certainly wont pick up any new fans in the A40, Uxbridge Rd corridor because QPR and Chelsea have very large & established support there, even after 10 years in the prem we`re probably the worst supported West London club in those areas.
People banging about transport links and parking as well, we`re a London club for crying out load, we`ve all got problems, concede it would be handy to have a nearer tube link but fact of the matter is there are three tube lines within a twenty minute walk, we`re hardly in the back of beyond

[Burt]

When I mentioned growth I had revenue and profitability in mind...

So I agree that we will not attract a much larger fan base than we currently have.

But a new development would enable more extensive and better quality corporate entertainment and merchandising facilities (which will have more financial upside than adding a few thousand more to the ground capacity) and a ground share would significantly reduce the operating expense.

Ugh...sacrilege...but football is a business now rather than a community service. Unfortunately. And from that perspective a ground share makes sense.

Emotionally, I am more than happy with where we are!

[TonyGilroy]

If a new stadium were built somewhere in West London to be shared by us and QPR both clubs would have to work hard to fill the empty seats.

Wouldn't be easy and all sorts of marketing initiatives would be tried but if linked to success on the pitch these initiatives would have an impact on crowd sizes. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that one club would benefit whilst the other wouldn't - significantly it would be a battle between the seperate marketing departments.

I am not of course advocating this. I know for sure that significant numbers of Fulham supporters would never attend a match at the new ground. I would though.

[LBNo11]

...Fulham & QPR Could Share Stadium, just the same as Liverpool and Everton, Spurs and Arsenal could share a stadium, it is a theoretical possibility, but as a long term matter it would mean the end of one of either Fulham or qpr in the process of time as the fans would boycott games and again in time the boards would get together and merging will become 'financially a viable issue'.

I know on a previous thread one of their fans actually believes they are a family club, but who want's to be a member of the Manson family...

[Airfix]

OMDB



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[richie17]

What if either side is relegated?  We'll just be the next Darlington/Oxford with a too big ground that looks stupid.  Stay where we are until the point where we're obviously outgrowing it, which isn't the case now.

I'm sure in the not too distant future everyone will be able to watch all games on tv anyway, at which point attending crowds will diminish considerably and ticket prices will have to drop as a result and (to follow the theory to its natural conclusion) you'll get a few more back in but not enough and eventually it'll be like TV audiences where you apply for free seats to watch the Wogan show.  There'll be canned stadium noise (or massively miked up.. oh, wait) and the whole sheband will fall apart.

[ClarksOriginal]

AC & Inter - Yes.
FFC & QPR - No.

[FC Silver Fox]

I agree with the QPR chairman, Tony Fernandes when he says that there is no real hope of redeveloping their existing ground, his club have to move. And quickly.

Barrow-in Furness and the surrounding area lack a premiership side. QPR can be off there and call themselves Queen's Park Barrow in the Furnace.  Good riddens.