No job guarantees for new QPR boss Hughes

QPR have refused to guarantee Mark Hughes will not be sacked if the club are relegated from the Premier League.

New manager Hughes pledged his long-term future to Rangers on Wednesday, insisting he had no intention of reneging on his two-and-a-half-year contract, even if the worst happened.

But QPR chief executive Philip Beard declined to give a cast-iron assurance the club would reciprocate.

Asked if they would stick with Hughes, who takes his new club to Newcastle tomorrow, should Rangers fail to survive this season, Beard said: “Every football club — and there are probably 12 or 13 of them — have got to contemplate what happens if they don’t perform as well as they need to on the pitch.

“That doesn’t mean our shareholders go away and we pack up our bags and don’t implement what we’ve been talking about. The aim is that Mark is here for a very long time and sees through the objectives and the aims.

“I’m a small cog in the wheel but I came here because I believe the shareholders have got a vision that they want to implement. My job is to try to do that off the pitch and I hope we’ve found the manager — the right person — to come and do it for us on the pitch.”

Pressed further on whether Hughes would definitely be in charge next season, come what may, Beard added: “I hope so.”

Beard confirmed they had plans in place should they suffer an immediate return to the npower Championship. “My job is to make sure that the business can be effective for the medium and long-term,” he said. “I look at business plans and contingency plans going forward.

“I hope what we’ve done over the last couple of days means that I don’t have to get those numbers out. But I’d be crazy to say that I haven’t even thought about what we’d be doing if we didn’t stay in the Premier League.”