QPR supremo Flavio: Within four years we will challenge Milan in Europe

13 April 2012

Flavio Briatore today promised to take Queens Park Rangers from the Championship into the Champions League within four years. The club's multi-millionaire owner also revealed he had been part of Bernie Ecclestone's bid to buy Chelsea, only for them to lose out to Roman Abramovich.

Rangers are 20th in the table and just three points off the relegation zone but Briatore believes the club can achieve his dream thanks to their new-found financial muscle-power.

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Grand ambitions: Flavio Briatore (left) and Bernie Ecclestone

Ecclestone and Lakshmi Mittal, the fifth richest man in the world, are also on the board and

Briatore insisted: "Within four years we will challenge Milan in Europe. Our programme is to reach the Premier League within three years.

"I want to be in Europe within four years. It would be great to challenge Milan. Briatore against [Adrian] Galliani [Milan president].

"I love football. But buying a football club is not what the doctor ordered so you need to enjoy yourself.

"That's why I got Bernie Ecclestone involved emotionally. I don't think he even knew QPR existed.

"To be honest, Bernie and I tried to buy Chelsea three months before Abramovich.

"But Roman put in an offer that was far more interesting than ours."

Briatore joked about how, in London, billionaire Abramovich was considered "poorer".

"For sure,"he told Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera. "Ecclestone and I have 70 per cent of the shares but one of my good friends, Lakshmi Mittal, has 20 per cent and he has a fortune estimated at around 60billion euros (£42bn)."

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