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The Four Year Plan

2011 film by Mat Hodgson

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ7735050
Source-derived summary

The Four Year Plan is a documentary film directed by Mat Hodgson about London based football club Queens Park Rangers.

Synopsis

The film chronicles the take over of the nearly bankrupt club in 2007 by a consortium of billionaires and their effort to promote the team to the Premier League by 2011. The consortium consisted of Bernie Ecclestone, Flavio Briatore and Alejandro Agag, steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and Amit Bhatia. It is an observational documentary that follows the club from within the boardroom. The cameras for this documentary were brought in by the new owners to create the film, and although the club gave permission for the cameras to be there, they had no say on where or when the cameras would be filming. The title derives from a statement made by Briatore in 2007 where he declared his 'target to be Premier League in four years'.

Release

The Four Year Plan premiered on 16 November 2011 at the IDFA Festival in the Netherlands, after which it premiered on the BBC in 2012.

Reception

The Guardian's Michael Hann reviewed the film favorably, calling it "a rare chance to witness the sparks that fly when business, football and machismo meet".

Editorial summary

“The Four Year Plan” enters the record as 2011 film by Mat Hodgson. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Four, Year and Plan can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2007, 2011, 2012—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2011-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Four, Year and Plan.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“The Four Year Plan” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Four, Year and Plan provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7735050. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2007, 2011 and 2012.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Four Year Plan”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Four Year Plan primary sources, The Four Year Plan archive and Four research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Four Year Plan”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Four Year Plan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.