Les Ferdinand believes QPR provide a better breeding ground for developing talent than Premier League neighbours Chelsea, Arsenal or Tottenham.
Olamide Shodipo, Osman Kakay and Niko Hamalainen are among the players to have graduated from the academy at Loftus Road this season.
Both Jimmy Floyd-Hasselbaink, who was sacked in November, and successor Ian Holloway have fallen back on youngsters this season and Ferdinand doubts such opportunities would have arisen at top flight clubs.
“We have to have a mechanism where playing for QPR is available to our youngsters," he told Get West London.
"One thing we should have above Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham is you have a better chance of playing for QPR's first team than you do at Chelsea.”
Ferdinand admitted during the summer that QPR couldn't compete with the Championship's big-spending clubs in the transfer market and were instead forced to bring in young players looking to further their careers, pointing to the signings of Jake Bidwell and Jordan Cousins.
The QPR chief now concedes that the Hoops would ideally target players further down the road in terms of development, but believes the club is a better destination for young players than many Premier League rivals despite a restrictive budget.
“We know we're not going to get five players out of our development squad and get promoted," he added.
"We'll still need to bring in experienced players but we can only afford younger players. We understand that. Not because I want to do that, it's where we are as a club at the moment.”
