The Football League has confirmed that a transfer embargo is place on QPR.

Just a week away from the start of the season and QPR fans were told today, by the league not the club, that their four star signings of the summer so far may not start the opening game at Bristol City.

Lee Camp, Simon Walton, Michael Mancienne and Ben Sahar were all brought into the club after the league had placed a transfer embargo on the club and are therefore unregistered.

This again comes back to the £500k loaned to the club by Oldham Chairman Simon Blitz which QPR promised to repay "forthwith" when the league first questioned it at the back end of last season. Now, with £300k still outstanding, the league are refusing to register any new signings with QPR until the money is repaid.

League Chairman Brian Mawhinney told the Daily Mail: "There is a financial issue relating to QPR which needs to be resolved. Therefore, we have said that restrictions will be applied to the club's transactions.

"As soon as the financial issue has been resolved it will be back to normal. I understand promises have been made. I assume it will be resolved very soon but we've been waiting for quite a long time."

Last week in an interview with BBC Radio LDN Chairman Gianni Paladini said: "The arrangement with Blitz is done. The agreement is done, I feel very angry about what happened there. Of course we pay it back, it's agreed, we pay it back in time it's under control, guaranteed 100%, no problem there are at all.

"Where is the embargo? We wanted players, we bought players, John Gregory has brought seven in. It's not true at all, honestly, do you want to see the letters from the league? The embargo was put on us before we started to pay money back to Blitz - now we're paying it back the embargo has been lifted.

"If it wasn't it would be stupid to parade Camp and Walton at Wycombe, what kind of game would that be if we hadn't actually signed them?"

Today's Daily Mail and Standard reports that the league has also witheld QPR's £1m slice of funding given to all clubs at this time of year.

It is our understanding that the remaining £300k will be repaid with money received from Fulham for Lee Cook. That is expected to happen next week - the deal allows the Premiership side three weeks to make the first up front payment for Cook - allowing the players to line up against Bristol City on day one.

Should that not happen and John Gregory be forced to go into that first fixture without four key players Gianni Paladini and his board may feel the wrath of the travelling QPR supporters on that day for the first time. This is a loan the club never should have taken out in the first place with the dual interest laws of the game well known and one that we have been promised time and again has already been paid back.

Many QPR supporters are happy to stick their head in the sand when it comes to the club's financial issues and just focus on events on the pitch but I'd expect a fierce reaction from this silent majority if a boardroom mess up deprives the team of four of its best players even only for a game.

The club has eight days left to sort this.

Photo: Action Images

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