Wycombe will be culpable.

[leon]

They’re a business. They’ll be getting an excellent training ground, I assume on the cheap because of our desperation. They owe us nothing. Our club has been absolutely shafted by a series of utter tossers, if Wycombe can take advantage of that to give themselves a competitive advantage, good luck to them. I’ll be disappointed in the impact on our club, but will hold no animosity toward them or their fans as a result.

One thing I know is if you disagree with Seb on matters of decency and moral fortitude then you’re on the right side.

Rare +1 to StP.

[Stranded]

Wycombe, or at least their owners will be culpable but naturally the villian remains Dai.

As a business owner, you see a deal like this, you will look at taking it but the line about it helping us out - I mean, they must know how hollow that rings - if reports are to be believed the main interested group who were close to exclusivity have walked away from a deal due to the stadium being siphoned off - this just makes the club as an ongoing concern less attractive.

So yes, whilst some Wycombe fans will sleep well at night thinking their club have "saved" us, in reality, they have just delayed the inevitable by about 3 months and made the only path out of this mess even less likely.

So whilst they are not the main culpable party, they have chosen this path, a path that will only likely hurt the club so I will hold them partially responsible if and when we hit the wall.

[Snowflake Royal]

They’re a business. They’ll be getting an excellent training ground, I assume on the cheap because of our desperation. They owe us nothing. Our club has been absolutely shafted by a series of utter tossers, if Wycombe can take advantage of that to give themselves a competitive advantage, good luck to them. I’ll be disappointed in the impact on our club, but will hold no animosity toward them or their fans as a result.

So long as attitudes like this exist, there will be more clubs in our situation. Clubs are valuable assets in the community and cannot simply be a business, and therefore we should hold owners to a different standard.

And the evidence is that they're not businesses in the traditional sense. What are the collective losses across the PL, EFL and NL? Eye watering amounts. If they were genuinely run as businesses we would also not be in this situation. They are vanity projects for the super rich, and all but 6 or 7 are just one bad sale away from being in our position. As one user on Twitter put it, we drew a short straw and there's a box of more straws waiting to be drawn.

Maybe the Wycombe owner thinks he's made a good deal, but as a club they're as vulnerable as the rest of the EFL. I expect many of their fans are sitting uncomfortably at this.

Wycombe buying our training ground has nothing to do with why we're oxf*rd.

It's a shit owner and law for football clubs that's at least half a century out of date.

[Stranded]

They’re a business. They’ll be getting an excellent training ground, I assume on the cheap because of our desperation. They owe us nothing. Our club has been absolutely shafted by a series of utter tossers, if Wycombe can take advantage of that to give themselves a competitive advantage, good luck to them. I’ll be disappointed in the impact on our club, but will hold no animosity toward them or their fans as a result.

So long as attitudes like this exist, there will be more clubs in our situation. Clubs are valuable assets in the community and cannot simply be a business, and therefore we should hold owners to a different standard.

And the evidence is that they're not businesses in the traditional sense. What are the collective losses across the PL, EFL and NL? Eye watering amounts. If they were genuinely run as businesses we would also not be in this situation. They are vanity projects for the super rich, and all but 6 or 7 are just one bad sale away from being in our position. As one user on Twitter put it, we drew a short straw and there's a box of more straws waiting to be drawn.

Maybe the Wycombe owner thinks he's made a good deal, but as a club they're as vulnerable as the rest of the EFL. I expect many of their fans are sitting uncomfortably at this.

Wycombe buying our training ground has nothing to do with why we're oxf*rd.

It's a shit owner and law for football clubs that's at least half a century out of date.

Of course it doesn't but if them buying it derails a deal that would be beneficial to the club, which it allegedly has, then they aren't "helping".

Not saying it is there responsibility to but it isn't helping. So yes, Dai is the villian and always will be but have major sympathy for the view that that club, or rather their owners, are deciding that helping to push us over the edge is worth it.

Even if we survive this, the whole fabric of the club will be different than it could have been under a new owner as our main draw when it comes to playing staff will be gone.

[WestYorksRoyal]

So long as attitudes like this exist, there will be more clubs in our situation. Clubs are valuable assets in the community and cannot simply be a business, and therefore we should hold owners to a different standard.

And the evidence is that they're not businesses in the traditional sense. What are the collective losses across the PL, EFL and NL? Eye watering amounts. If they were genuinely run as businesses we would also not be in this situation. They are vanity projects for the super rich, and all but 6 or 7 are just one bad sale away from being in our position. As one user on Twitter put it, we drew a short straw and there's a box of more straws waiting to be drawn.

Maybe the Wycombe owner thinks he's made a good deal, but as a club they're as vulnerable as the rest of the EFL. I expect many of their fans are sitting uncomfortably at this.

Wycombe buying our training ground has nothing to do with why we're oxf*rd.

It's a shit owner and law for football clubs that's at least half a century out of date.

Of course it doesn't but if them buying it derails a deal that would be beneficial to the club, which it allegedly has, then they aren't "helping".

Not saying it is there responsibility to but it isn't helping. So yes, Dai is the villian and always will be but have major sympathy for the view that that club, or rather their owners, are deciding that helping to push us over the edge is worth it.

Even if we survive this, the whole fabric of the club will be different than it could have been under a new owner as our main draw when it comes to playing staff will be gone.

If we survive, we all need to accept that Dai has left us as a L1/L2 club and it will take years of competent management to rebuild. Obviously this is infinitely better than the alternative. But even under new ownership, I can see a summer of turnover again. The idea that last year's recruitment can be a springboard to better things is dead.

[Greatwesternline]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

[genome]

[Green]

[WestYorksRoyal]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

I don't know about the history of Cork City, but a quick glance on Wikipedia says they upgraded their stadium in 2006 which suggests they were hardly at death's door.

[Stranded]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

Yes, this is exactly the same thing - good parallel there. Well done.

[tidus_mi2]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

With your great knowledge of the Cork situation over the Doyle and Long transfers, did the money go to Cork or did the owner pocket the bulk of it?

Because this is the most contentious part of the issue with the training ground sale. You don't see many, if anyone criticising Luton, Olympiacos, Portsmouth or Brighton for essentially mugging us off for some of our better senior players and young prospects because fundamentally, Dai can't take that money but he can for assets he owns

[andrew1957]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

My recollection is that Doyle came here as pretty much an unknown and Long as just potential and so no one knew they would go on to be worth millions of pounds. That is the equivalent of Luton and Brighton buying our young players in January. They are taking a risk as young players might not develop in the future. Fair play to them.

On the other hand Wycombe are doing will be the death knell of the club, so if the sale of Bearwood goes through, we should absolutely feel animosity towards Wycombe's owner.

[Delboy]

How on earth can they afford to run the Academy at Bearwood on crowds of 4000 no way!

[TommyF]

READING WANDERERS or WYCOMBE ROYALS

if only Robert Maxwell was alive to see it.

Very sad news, and I agree, Wycombe are stealing from the grave. As for it offering us a lifeline I suspect that lifeline will last as long as it takes to transfer the money to China, a process I'm sure will be easier than how hard getting it out allegedly is

[Greatwesternline]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

With your great knowledge of the Cork situation over the Doyle and Long transfers, did the money go to Cork or did the owner pocket the bulk of it?

Because this is the most contentious part of the issue with the training ground sale. You don't see many, if anyone criticising Luton, Olympiacos, Portsmouth or Brighton for essentially mugging us off for some of our better senior players and young prospects because fundamentally, Dai can't take that money but he can for assets he owns

There is no difference between Dai Yongge selling players and selling assets. He owns the club, he owns the training ground. What he chooses to do with the proceeds of players sales or training grounds sales is entirely up to him.

How are they so many people on here who dont understand that Dai Yonge gets to choose what happens to all the money in the RFC group of companies, regardless of where it came from, or what company it sits in. He owns it all. He can pay himself dividends. He can pay back loans he has made to the club.

There is no restriction on what he does with the money from players sales.

[Greatwesternline]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

My recollection is that Doyle came here as pretty much an unknown and Long as just potential and so no one knew they would go on to be worth millions of pounds. That is the equivalent of Luton and Brighton buying our young players in January. They are taking a risk as young players might not develop in the future. Fair play to them.

On the other hand Wycombe are doing will be the death knell of the club, so if the sale of Bearwood goes through, we should absolutely feel animosity towards Wycombe's owner.

What happened with Doyle was, we bought Long and Doyle for £60-80k, sources can't quite agree. But Cork ran into massive financial difficulties, and Reading still had a sell on clause in the Cork City deal. So Cork went to Reading and said, we need money, can you buy out the sell on clause for Doyle.

Reading did, because it was for like another £100k. And they knew they might need to sell him at some point for double digit millions. It made sense to Reading, but they did take advantage of another club's financial misfortunes.

[Greatwesternline]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

I don't know about the history of Cork City, but a quick glance on Wikipedia says they upgraded their stadium in 2006 which suggests they were hardly at death's door.

Correct you dont know about the history of Cork City. Wind your google search forward to 2008

https://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer ... 92914.html

I'll help you.

[WestYorksRoyal]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

I don't know about the history of Cork City, but a quick glance on Wikipedia says they upgraded their stadium in 2006 which suggests they were hardly at death's door.

Correct you dont know about the history of Cork City. Wind your google search forward to 2008

https://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer ... 92914.html

I'll help you.

So that was after the original signing? So when we originally bought out the clause, they weren't in trouble? Presumably Doyle asked for it hoping that a club in England may trigger it? And if they needed the sell on cash in 2008, us buying it out may have helped given we didn't sell him until 2009.

I thought all our player sales in January were fair game. But buying a training ground which is too big for your club to support a leech of an owner asset stripping and tanking a potential takeover the club desperately needs is a completely different ball game.

[Royal_jimmy]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

With your great knowledge of the Cork situation over the Doyle and Long transfers, did the money go to Cork or did the owner pocket the bulk of it?

Because this is the most contentious part of the issue with the training ground sale. You don't see many, if anyone criticising Luton, Olympiacos, Portsmouth or Brighton for essentially mugging us off for some of our better senior players and young prospects because fundamentally, Dai can't take that money but he can for assets he owns

There is no difference between Dai Yongge selling players and selling assets. He owns the club, he owns the training ground. What he chooses to do with the proceeds of players sales or training grounds sales is entirely up to him.

How are they so many people on here who dont understand that Dai Yonge gets to choose what happens to all the money in the RFC group of companies, regardless of where it came from, or what company it sits in. He owns it all. He can pay himself dividends. He can pay back loans he has made to the club.

There is no restriction on what he does with the money from players sales.

Yes he may be able to do what he wants, but he's doing what would be described as a cnut

[Royal_jimmy]

When Reading bought Kevin Doyle for £60k, and then bought out the remaining clauses in the contract from Cork for a pittance when they were about to go out of business, and it was obvious to everyone that he was worth multiple millions, were we culpable?

Yes i suppose. But we still did it.

I don't know about the history of Cork City, but a quick glance on Wikipedia says they upgraded their stadium in 2006 which suggests they were hardly at death's door.

Correct you dont know about the history of Cork City. Wind your google search forward to 2008

https://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer ... 92914.html

I'll help you.

Players leave and come. It was sad to see us sell players and yes clubs took advantage in the Jan window. But selling a stadium or training ground sale to a league rival is a different matter entirely. So it's ridiculous to compare this to us taking advantage of Cork's situation. They didn't go bust and we helped them. Whereas Wycombe are doing the opposite by helping Dai liquidate the clubs assets without a penny going to us.

If the shoe was on the other foot, I'd feel genuinely uncomfortable seeing the club do this, it's morally wrong and shouldn't be allowed to happen as easy as it can. Selling Bearwood just means we'll be in the same financial position as now but with no stadium or training ground. Just a brand name with a few players and employees. I'd hate this football club if we helped kill another club.