Mittal buys 20% stake in UK football club

LONDON: Lakshmi Mittal, chief executive of steelmaker ArcelorMittal, has bought a 20% stake in the British football team Queens Park Rangers (QPR). The west London soccer club lies at the bottom of England’s second-tier Championship.

The NRI and Britain’s richest man had been interested in picking up a football team for some time, but he was pipped to the post by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich who bought the Premier League team Chelsea.

Within his family, Mittal was beaten in the club-grabbing chase by his younger brother Pramod who bought Bulgarian football club CSKA in November 2006.

But last month, rumours had begun to circulate that Pramod was putting the CSKA up for sale because of a dispute relating to the long-term lease of the club’s training base.  

As for Lakshmi Mittal’s QPR, it has not been in the Premier League for a while. It is interesting that the tycoon who has made his millions by picking up sick steel companies and turning them around, has used the same tactic in selecting a football team.

The Football Club said it was “delighted that the Mittal family had taken a 20% stake in QPR Holdings Limited”.

With the combined fortunes of Formula One guru Bernie Ecclestone, a shareholder in QPR, and Mittal being placed at a staggering £21.4 billion, QPR certainly has bags of money. Now all it needs is talent. Fans hope they will now be better placed to buy the talent.

Ecclestone and Mittal are old friends, particularly since Mittal bought his current home at Kensington Palace Gardens for £70 million from Ecclestone a few years ago.

“This investment in QPR by the Mittal family is a great stepping stone towards the future development of the club and supports the ambition of the current shareholders to reach the Premier League in the near future,” said a spokesperson for the QPR Board of Directors.

“The new capital being invested in QPR will help fund the programme that is needed to help us achieve this target,” he said.

Alongside Ecclestone who bought QPR with Flavio Briatore of Renault Formula One and Sarita Capital, the Mittal family will be a significant shareholder. Mittal has placed his son-in-law Amit Bhatia as a director on the club’s board.

“The family is excited about becoming involved in QPR Football Club. As a family we love sport and particularly enjoy English football,” said Amit Bhatia. “Alongside Bernie and Flavio we hope we can improve the club’s performance, with the ultimate ambition of finding a place in the Premier League,” he said.

QPR has a history which is over a century old and has always been a West London club with its current grounds at Loftus Road in Queens Park. While the director’s box may currently be ramshackle it does not seem to have put off Mittal who visited it last weekend.

West London is definitely prime real estate and while some suggest that Mittal may be eyeing it by following in the footsteps of other London teams which have shifted their clubs out of the capital, most feel more than anything QPR is probably better used as a tax write-off!