Mallya to buy QPR stake?

The rumour of the day out of London is that Indian business tycoon Vijay Mallya is interested to buy the stakes of Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and former Renault F1 chief Flavio Briatore in English Championship club Queens Park Rangers FC. The southwest London club are currently co-owned by Ecclestone, Briatore and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi N. Mittal.

But in February Briatore left the day to day management of the club after having had signed and thrown out 10 managers in less then two-and-a-half years. He was not liked by the Loftus Road faithfuls and handed over the running of the club to the Mittal family where son-in-law Amit Bhatia is Vice-Chairman of QPR Holdings Limited. His personal friend Ishan Saksena has since taken over as Chairman of QPR after having been Managing Director.

And since then QPR have signed Neil Warnock as manager and this seems to have done the trick as they have had an incredible start to their Championship campaign so far topping the league with 26 points from 10 matches, eight wins and two draws with 24 goals scored and only three conceded. Surely an impressive record and something which the club will want to build on. The aim surely is to maintain the momentum and a reorganisation of the ownership of the club could help ahead of bigger things in the Premiership, if the club achieves its aim to get back into the top tier.

A couple of years ago Mallya was linked to QPR but not as a potential buyer, but for a sponsorship deal through his Kingfisher brand. But as the club had signed Gulf Air on a three year deal, the club couldn't bring on Kingfisher as a sponsor as the brand also runs an airlines under the name. But now things could change if Mallya takes over the stakes of Ecclestone and Briatore. This would lead to a strong Indian pact amongst the Mittal's and Mallya's. And so far QPR haven't really spend highly in the transfer market, which could change next summer if the club plays in the Premiership.

Mallya through his United Breweries Sports division already owns Formula 1 team Force India, Indian Premier League cricket side Royal Challengers Bangalore, has interests in horse racing plus has 50% stakes in Indian football giants East Bengal Club and Mohun Bagan AC.