Nedum Onuoha honestly states that “the fans understood” when he left QPR.
Given that the West London team first returned to the Premier League for the first time since 1996 by winning the Championship title in the 2010–11 season under Neil Warnock’s leadership, it would be safe to say that the 2010s were a “rollercoaster of emotions” for everyone connected to the team. However, they were unable to maintain their top flight standing for an extended period of time despite multiple significant transfer sprees on high-profile signings.
Rangers had to endure a number of sanctions after returning to the second division at the end of the 2014–15 season under Chris Ramsey, and it took them a long time to recover financially from their period of excessive spending under Tony Fernandes. Since then, they have hardly threatened to break their ten-year hiatus from the top division of English football, with their only escapes from relegation to League One occurring in the 2022–23 and 2023–24 seasons.
Onuoha, the former defender-turned-pundit, talked about how his time at the club ended on Ben Foster’s “Fozcast.” Despite the Hoops’ desire to move on from those days and make significant progress in the future, those who were inside Loftus Road during a very turbulent time are unlikely to forget those days anytime soon.
ONuoha first joined QPR in January 2012, during Mark Hughes’ first transfer window after controversially replacing Warnock that same month. The England youth international signed a four-and-a-half-year contract worth £45,755 per week, according to Capology ESTIMATES, while rejoining his former Manchester City manager.
Shortly after being named club captain after Joey Barton left for Burnley, the seasoned player signed a two-year contract extension in September 2015 after playing in two Premier League relegations and the most spectacular of play-off final victories over Derby County at Wembley Stadium. His salary was therefore estimated to have dropped to around £30,236 per week over the course of two seasons, and then to an additional £25,421 per week in his final season with the team in 2017–18. The majority of Onuoha’s 426 career appearances were at Loftus Road, where he played 224 games for Rangers over six and a half years and scored eight goals before leaving the team.
But more than seven years later, the 38-year-old has been talking about the situation that saw wage cuts continue during a difficult time for the club’s finances as they tried to stabilise after Fernandes’ outrageous spending sprees, which also caused the capital side to owe debts of up to £177.1 million during the 2012–13 fiscal year. “The money I was on at QPR when I first joined – money’s never been my driver, I’ve been paid well, but I’m not really bothered by the status of it, if it’s enough it’s enough – is probably around £2m a year, then it was going up,” Onuoha said in response to Foster’s question about the sequence of events that led to the decline of a pay-as-you-pay contract.
“It was probably around £1 million last year. Then they gave me a deal that was almost £2,500 a week,” he continued. “An appearance bonus, which was about four or five times, provided the subsidy. “At the time, the way the club was – sorry for speaking out of turn – I’m always wary,” Onuoha said. “Until they are on a pay-as-you-play contract or require 28 appearances to secure a new contract, players believe they have strengths. However, you sit at 27 for the majority of the season.
“I was like, ‘this isn’t it’,” he said. “I recently had my third child. It was wonderful that I was situated in Surrey, but I had no intention of remaining there. “I thought that was fair enough and that I needed to leave. I believe that as I was leaving, the supporters finally realised who I was because the club had undergone so many changes. After leaving, Onuoha played football for Real Salt Lake in the Major League Soccer (MLS) for two and a half seasons, making 50 appearances from late 2018 until the end of the 2020 campaign.
The Nigerian-born defender announced his retirement from professional football at the end of the aforementioned campaign due to injury issues he had while playing for the club. Since then, he has been actively involved in the sports media industry. In recent years, Onuoha has been a familiar face on our televisions, especially as a result of the BBC’s coverage of Match of the Day, which began after the broadcaster acquired the rights to air UEFA Champions League highlight shows.
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