Tony Fernandes is persuaded he has the business model to make his two sporting enterprises successful and profitable. After setting up Team Lotus two years ago in a sport stare as a drain on resources, opting to then plough even more of his fortune into football this summer appear brave at best.
But Fernandes pursued and realised his dream of owning a football club by purchase the preponderance shareholding stake in QPR from F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and previous Renault team principal Flavio Briatore. The Malaysian capitalist, who has made his chance from budget airline AirAsia, has no misgivings Team Lotus and QPR can follow in the footsteps of that exacting business and make money.
I started an airline with 25 cents, which is now worth approximately four billion dollars, Fernandes said.So it's about taking a business, like the F1 team or football club, making it cash positive and running it as a business.There are some guys in Formula One who run their team for their car business, and we are raising it as a car business as well with the endorsement of Caterham.
So it is a business, not the black hole of Calcutta. The football team can also be a business, and should be a business.Given the plethora of sponsors on board with Team Lotus, turning over a profit may not be too hard, but still daunting. Attempting it with QPR may be a dissimilar proposition altogether given the drain a football club can prove, in exacting one in the Barclays Premier League and the hefty wage bill that comes with it.
But a defiant Fernandes added:I'm not saying there is something special about me, but not many people have made an airline as profitable as I have.We think we have been able to build and run businesses correctly, and I'm fairly confident.Toyota spent God knows how many millions, and I'm sure within two years we'll be as good as Toyota having spent maybe a tenth of what they did.
The days of free spending are coming to an end anyway. Everyone is look at costs, costs, costs, so the time is good.And with football, some of the players we've buy would have cost a lot more three years ago.There is some sensibility coming into football as well, even though I know we have the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea.