NPower Championship leading Queens Park Rangers remained unbeaten tonight after a scoreless draw at Swansea City, a result that left the R’s two points ahead of Cardiff City, 5 points ahead of Watford in the race for automatic promotion. On the same day one of Rangers’ owners was all but calling manager Neil Warnock a lame duck, another professed to being somewhat less than blown away by his soccer club’s astonishing early start. The Guardian’s Donald McRae had the dubious pleasure of interviewing F1 boss-turned-football-magnate Bernie Ecclestone ;
Does he have any enthusiasm for QPR? “Not at all. Of course I can pull out “ but there are lots of things that could and should be done there. It’s mainly commercial things and for me to see if we can get that working better. Once you get me involved that’s it. I’m there.”
And QPR are top of the Championship. “Yeah, it’s good. Super, super, super. We can only go down from here.”
They might go up first, to the Premier League, before going down again. Ecclestone almost smiles again. “Half the people who get involved in football do it only to satisfy their ego. I suppose we all get caught up in that.”
Ecclestone has never worried much about public opinion. Did he lose any sleep last year after describing Hitler as a politician who was “able to get things done”? “Not at all. I knew what I meant.”
His apparent endorsement of Hitler was, he explains, an expression of his belief in dictatorships. “Absolutely. I get myself into so much trouble when I say these things but I don’t think democracy is the way to run anything. Whether it’s a company or anything you need someone who is going to turn the lights on and off. We had Mrs Thatcher and when she was in charge she did turn the lights on and off. She brought the country to where it was before it got muddled up again.”