#SellBeforeWeDai Action/Inaction Group

[From Despair To Where?]

Was the stadium ever worth £55m?

Nope, although you have to factor in the value of the land for redevelopment, which I imagine isn't more than the value with the stadium on it once you factor in demolition and construction costs to create, presumably offices which are already two a penny next door in Green Park.

Didn't the club "sell" the stadium for £55m to the separate company at one point to try and fiddle Financial Fair Play? - ie the reason we got a points deduction? If so, the bank wouldn't be stupid enough to take a valuation based on the sale of the stadium from, effectively Dai Younge to Dai Younge would they?.... if so, maybe I could sell a dustbin to myself for £100m and then borrow £100m against it from that same bank to save Reading FC.... It does mean I may struggle to sell the bin and ultimately may see the bank take ownership of it, but I can live with that.

The bank may only be called out as incompetent if they reposes something that then turns out to be worth less than half it's value, so it may be in their interests not to do so.

Wasn’t it Derby who sold their ground to the owner for a clearly over inflated amount ?
IIRC we sold ours for the value it had on our balance sheet and that was based on an independent valuation whereas Derby’s was valued by someone connected to the club. Don’t think we did anything wrong did we ? It’s common practice for businesses to move assets around their books to maximise benefits.

Pride Park was valued at £85m in an independent valuation carried out by company owned by Mel Morris' brother.

[Forbury Lion]

Pride Park was valued at £85m in an independent valuation carried out by company owned by Mel Morris' brother.

Sound legit.
Maybe Dai Yongge's sister did a valuation of the Madejski Stadium to back-up the loan from the lending bank

[Dave the rave]

Not sure where to post this but here seems appropriate seeing as SBWD is the main thrust of the article.
Anyone not familiar; Daniel Storey from the i (Independent) newspaper is hoping to visit all 92 league clubs this season.
They've been a good read, more focused on the clubs and fans themselves rather than any particular game, so was awaiting his assessment of us. As dire as I assumed but we're Reading so used to all that. Full article to follow.....

The tragic irony of Reading FC
Doing the 92

For almost a year and a half, Reading fans have been locked in a bitter civil war with owner Dai Yongge. It wasn't supposed to be like this

Walking up to the home of Reading is a distinctly doleful experience in 2024, like passing through the high street of a town you used to live in and knowing you can never get those years back. This was the house that John Madejski built that once bore his name, full most weeks during the good years when magic dust seemed to land upon Reading for a while.
Madejski was chairman from 1990, a man who grew up in a children’s home in the town and then made his many millions. He rescued Reading from receivership, built them a new home and then funded a dream not through wanton overspending but by savviness and sensible delegation to well-appointed managers.
Reading had three seasons in the Premier League – the latest in 2012-13 – and finished eighth in 2006-07. They didn’t spend more than £3m on a player until 2017. They made a cult hero team by making good with what they had and who they found along the way: Steve Coppell, Brian McDermott, Adam Le Fondre, Kevin Doyle, Nicky Shorey, Graeme Murty, Stephen Hunt, Dave Kitson, Ibrahima Sonko, Steve Sidwell and more. Reading were a single point away from European football in 2007.
That is the cast list you think of when you walk around the Select Car Leasing Stadium now and not only because their faces, frozen in moments of shared joy, adorn walls that have witnessed far worse times since. Reading have spent more than a year in a state of civil war, an emergency that gets worse with each passing month and each potential takeover that fails. There is one message above all others here: leave fast, Dai Yongge.


As such, there were less than 13,000 at Reading on Saturday lunchtime, vast swathes of blue seats obvious at one end and that splash effect in the main stands, where a concentrated collection of fans in the middle eventually gives away to sporadic dots. Some feel that they cannot give any more money to the owner and, although it doesn’t quite work that way, you have to accept their desire to stay away. Others simply had their spirit eroded to the point that going to the football wasn’t fun enough to justify the cost, time or effort.
Madejski lost control of Reading when he sold it to Thames Sports Investments, a Russian consortium fronted by Anton Zingarevich that were never able to fully complete the purchase, a Thai ownership group stepping in instead. In November 2016, Chinese siblings Dai Yongge and Dai Xiu Li began negotiations to take a majority stake having tried and failed to buy Hull City. By May 2017, they were in.
Dai’s first match – for it was he who was more hands-on and is now effectively the sole owner – was the Championship play-off final at Wembley. Reading lost that on penalties and have never been as high again. That is the tragic irony: all this hurt, all this sorry wastage and all this wasted energy to never get back even to where you started. It could all have been so different but this is all it is now.
Dai might be accused of many things, but not spending money isn’t one of them. The enforced parsimony that eventually swallowed Reading’s potential arrived because of their own excesses. They spent around £15m on George Puscas and Sone Aluko despite being a second-tier club with lower revenues than many of their peers. They reportedly relied upon agent Kia Joorabchian as their high-end transfer fixer. They were known as generous wage payers, especially for loan players.
Unhelpfully, Reading also didn’t sell particularly well. Under Dai’s entire ownership, they have sold two players for a fee of more than £2.5m. The first was Leandro Bacuna, who left for Cardiff for just under £3m in January 2019 (in the same season Reading paid more than that for Sam Baldock). The second was Michael Olise, criminally undervalued by a release clause that allowed him to join Crystal Palace for just £8m.
More to the point, Reading weren’t actually very good. They finished 20th in the first two full seasons under Dai’s ownership and then 14th in the third. In 2020-21, the season before everything started to unravel, Reading were in a dominant position to at least make the Championship play-offs. They won one of their last 11 league games and finished seventh.
That created only one likely reality. Spending on wages alone eventually doubled revenue, financial regulations started to bite and, in November 2021, Reading were deducted six points for exceeding agreed limits on losses with the EFL. The following season they were deducted a further six points for failing to comply with the schedule agreed after the first punishment; this time it meant relegation to League One.

And then last season, more farces still. Reading were docked one point for failing to pay players on time the previous season, two points for making late payments to HMRC and another three for more late payments of salaries. The club existed under transfer embargoes for breaching profitability and sustainability regulations. It became clear: Dai had got it all wrong and the club was paying for his mistakes.
Supporters may have forgiven the wayward stewardship if they could believe that their club was meeting them halfway. Football clubs get relegated all the time and many step on the wrong side of the rules, even multiple times. Tricky times can bring clubs together and create siege mentalities that reinforce the sensation of social institution rather than degrading it.
Here that never happened because lines of communication were broken. Supporters’ groups were told repeatedly that Dai was a private individual, but that doesn’t adequately explain the information vacuum in which only fear or rumour could ever hope to breed sustainably. Relegation to League One could have offered a shot at a clear reset and return to the values that propelled Reading on in the past. Instead, it was bad business as usual.
That is what provoked the protests that have become one of the most concerted supporter campaigns in recent history. Five groups combined to create Sell Before We Dai, a protest organisation that demanded the sale of Reading before more damage could be done. Many of these supporters did the same to save the club in the 1980s; here they were again.
A year ago this month, thousands met at Blue Collar Street Food market on Hosier Street on the eastern edge of the town centre and marched the two miles to the stadium. That was the breakout event of Sell Before We Dai, a means of gaining national attention for their plight before a home game against Portsmouth, a club who had suffered painfully similar turbulence.


The depth and breadth of initiatives that Sell Before We Dai have organised since is genuinely astonishing and impossible to list exhaustively. They created websites and merchandise. They wrote manifestoes for change. They participated in countless media interviews with almost as many different outlets.
They reached out to the council and managed to obtain Asset of Community Value status for the stadium, offering a layer of protection given the separation of the club and ground under Dai’s watch. They relentlessly worked to secure help from local and national MPs, including an approach to use Reading as a test-case club for a new independent regulator.
They organised sit-in protests, tennis ball protests, red card protests and clown fancy dress protests. They became investigative journalists to unearth information that could help their case. They held meetings with the EFL and used social media to conduct sessions in which supporters of other clubs are educated on the issues. They helped to raise money for financial shortfalls within the club. They became educated and active on four different Chinese social media platforms to try and raise awareness in Dai’s native country.
“You name it, Reading fans have done it,” says Adam Jones of the protest group.
“Sell Before We Dai has been the central point for protests and pressure, but it’s the whole fanbase that has helped to bring some of these ideas to life through their participation and fundraising.
“As a group we’re extremely grateful for the support. A prawn sandwich brigade we’re not. Fans have shown that they’re willing to go to all lengths to save their football club.”
One shift over time is how the protests became more studied (focusing on aiding the end goal) rather than reactive (causing a stink about the situation). As Sarah Turner, chair of Reading Supporters’ Trust, explained to me before Saturday’s game, that was a deliberate move because they could not risk more harm to the team due to punishments for interruptive action. “Support the team, not the regime” became another mantra.

You see the point: if the aim is for the club to be sold, getting points deductions for actions calling for that sale is only going to take the club down the table and make them less attractive to buyers and exacerbate the emergency. Instead they became a committed cooperative in which experts from multiple industries worked with an army of general volunteer supporters.
And where has that led but nowhere at all. For all their magnificent, tireless work, Reading supporters cannot force through a sale and cannot alter its conditions enough themselves. Last month, a third potential takeover in 12 months fell through as former Wycombe Wanderers owner Rob Couhig was unable to complete a deal. It is the same old story: constant effort and worry with no obvious reward nor end in sight. I have timed my trip to Reading deliberately: this marks the 365th day since Dai announced that the club was for sale.
“I don’t know what as a campaign we could’ve done more,” Caroline Parker of Sell Before We Dai told i.
“We’ve given blood, sweat and tears for 15 months to try to get this man out of the club. We’ve tried everything. We couldn’t have been more high profile.
“And what’s it got us to? Nothing. No football fans should have to keep going through this.”
When chatting to Sarah outside the stadium, her reaction is slightly different but no less bleak: “You know what, when I heard the news, there was no anger and there were no tears. It was just a feeling of complete resignation. It has all made me dead inside.”
This is not just a case of wanting a new owner because they don’t much care for the record of the current one. According to a report in The Guardian, Dai’s attempts to sell the club are being complicated by his failure to repay debts to a Chinese bank, which would raise fears for any potential buyer that they may lose control of the stadium if it is taken as collateral.
Furthermore, Couhig’s group loaned the club money to keep players and staff – and HMRC – paid up and avoid further points deductions. Olise’s sale to Bayern Munich by Crystal Palace has provided a cash injection, but supporters are clearly worried about how long the money will last.
“The fact that they are choosing not to [fund the club] is deplorable, dishonourable and brings the entire game into disrepute,” a statement from the Supporters’ Trust read.
“The club statement asserts that ‘funds are in place to fund the club until a transaction is completed’. This is a huge claim for the club to make given Dai has not funded the club for over six months, the club has continually missed payments without external support and the selling process is nearly entering a second year.”
All the while, things keep getting worse. Staff have been made redundant, a sale of the training ground only collapsed after significant protests, the club’s women’s team were forced to pull out of the second tier because they could no longer operate professionally and those staff left at the club are under enormous pressure and live in constant fear that wages may not arrive on time. It doesn’t get much worse than this.
And yet, counterintuitively given all this place has witnessed over the last two years, I am here to find some hope too. In part it is to be found in everything I read and hear about the supporters themselves. When a fanbase comes together and unites over a single goal, it creates the potential for a day, further down the line, when they can look each other in teary eyes and know that their comradeship made this happen. How could hope not exist while that remains a possibility?
But it’s also present here because of what is happening on the pitch and who is driving it. In Ruben Selles, Reading supporters have a manager who is committed to making the best of the worst and has been an ally to them off the pitch. Reading academy regained Level 1 status in the summer of 2023 and without it god knows where Reading would be now. These two factors have meant everything.
On the side of the stadium is a giant mosaic of Eamonn Dolan, on the stand that now bears his name. Dolan was the academy manager at Reading from 2004 until his tragic passing from cancer in 2016 at the age of just 48. Dolan’s work was not just in providing key ingredients in some of Reading’s greatest ever teams, but in the principles he upheld and standards he set in the academy that would last long after he left us.
Reading beat Bristol Rovers on Saturday; they were dominant throughout although the scoreline was only 1-0 and although they survived a late wobble. They have now picked up the most points at home in the EFL this season, remarkable given preseason expectations and the general mood. A haven has been found in the most unlikely place.


Reading’s starting XI had an average age of 23.8, one of the youngest in the country. More remarkable is that the team contained five academy graduates and there were another four on the bench.
In total this season, Reading have included 12 different academy graduates in their matchday squads. This may not last because the depth in the squad is non-existent, because young players suffer troughs as well as peaks and because there is no money to spend in January, but Reading are sixth in League One.
After the match, Sarah drops me a message: “I hope you could see that there is a good feeling between fans and players – it feels like a team fighting against the odds too”.
And she’s right; it absolutely does. This is a group of young kids who have only known hardship here under a Spanish coach who has been forced to suffer exactly the same, and yet they seem determined to do all they can together. That is enough to provoke intense feelings of pride, even in an outsider visiting for a day.
Who knows how long that can last, because the cycle of emotional turmoil begins again. A new period of exclusivity has opened with a different potential purchaser. Perhaps, after three failures, the fourth one will be a charm. Sarah gives me a knowing smile when I ask if she’s hopeful of it going through. Adam verbalises the same look.
“The club may be in a period of exclusivity now, but we’re still engaging with politicians to try and keep the pressure on. We appreciate the fact we need to be doing meaningful things to actually make any difference and that’s firmly in our minds. We can’t take anything for granted and our work continues.”
Nobody here will dare celebrate until there is a new name above the door. One day I will come back here and not feel as if I am walking towards a wake as I venture along Acre Road with the white metalwork of the stadium coming into view. For now that remains a pipe dream that ultimately sits outside of the control of all but a few.
But when it does happen, and the cloud finally lifts from this club and its 153-year history, we should take a step back to pay homage to those who have offered solace and made a difference over the last year. To the academy players who have stepped up to fill the gaps. To the manager who has somehow shut out the noise. To the staff who have kept on working, taking on more duties under harder circumstances.
And to the supporters: those within the protest groups, those leaders of the movement, those who have volunteered and organised and those outsiders who have lent their help, advice or simply listened. These are the people who went above and beyond because they felt they owed it to those who loved Reading before them and those who would love it after them. They have done so for far longer than they ever feared that they might have to. The things that keep football clubs alive are exactly the things that make that life worth fighting for.

[under the tin]

^^^^ Nice, if sad read. 54 years and counting for this now Fareham resident. RTID.

[rightroyalkneesup2]

Thanks for posting that.

[AthleticoSpizz]

+1 a great article, thanx

[stealthpapes]

Yeah, + 1 on all.

Many of these supporters did the same to save the club in the 1980s; here they were again.

That line got me a bit.

And its a great ending.

[Forbury Lion]

The only things I would have added to the article above are

Mentioning The Port Vale match protest/abandonment - Arguably that was the peak of the protests rather than the March to the Stadium, although I guess that may not have been an official SellBeforeWeDai protest.

Being forced to sell off our academy youngsters to pay the bills, the likes of Nelson Abbey and Calum Vickers

The Training Ground sale falling through, Yes protests may have played a part but really it was the clever clause in the Planning Permission which would have prevented any team but Reading using the facilities. Maybe also mention that it was Rob Couhig looking to buy it before he tried to buy the club.

I might have also mentioned the William Storey smoke and mirrors, Mike Ashley, maybe also more about Kia not so super agent and maybe the likes of Ron Gourlay badly managing us.

Actually, taking all this into account.... I reckon there's enough material for a half decent football book to be written, hopefully one with a happy ending, maybe even make it into a musical

[royal67]

A great article. Let's hope that there is a happy ending to this tale of woe....

[Armadillo Roadkill]

As much as anything else, it's nice to have an external voice in the national media refuting the plastic fans, tin pot club, soulless stadium, no history, blah, blah blah stuff we get from some others.

[Snowflake Royal]

Good article that.

[windermereROYAL]

Yep, my mate bought that article into the pubs last week, a long read so pretty hard to take in with people talking around me, very good that I can read it again with no distractions.

[Dave the rave]

Glad to share. Just a massive shame about the circumstances. When you read some of the articles of other clubs you can't help but think "why can't that be us".

[Royals and Racers]

Sell before we Dai getting restless- statement from them i have just seen on X

[Gunny Fishcake]

Really well written article , thanks for sharing, made me feel quite proud in a rather sad way

[Sutekh]

Sell before we Dai getting restless- statement from them i have just seen on X

Link?

Facebook page says

The silence on the sale of #ReadingFC has gone on for too long, with reports the club only has funds until mid-November.
Not only have we renewed calls for the club to communicate with fans, we've given them a helping hand with an example of a meaningful update. One which we think is still NDA compliant.
It shouldn't be this hard. #sellbeforewedai

Natives are getting restless, though not sure who it is at the club that does all the PR stuff now (if anyone).

[Royals and Racers]

Sell before we Dai getting restless- statement from them i have just seen on X

Link?

Facebook page says

The silence on the sale of #ReadingFC has gone on for too long, with reports the club only has funds until mid-November.
Not only have we renewed calls for the club to communicate with fans, we've given them a helping hand with an example of a meaningful update. One which we think is still NDA compliant.
It shouldn't be this hard. #sellbeforewedai

Natives are getting restless, though not sure who it is at the club that does all the PR stuff now (if anyone).

That’s the one- sorry but i can’t link it or post the article in full.

[Sutekh]

Sell before we Dai getting restless- statement from them i have just seen on X

Link?

Facebook page says

The silence on the sale of #ReadingFC has gone on for too long, with reports the club only has funds until mid-November.
Not only have we renewed calls for the club to communicate with fans, we've given them a helping hand with an example of a meaningful update. One which we think is still NDA compliant.
It shouldn't be this hard. #sellbeforewedai

Natives are getting restless, though not sure who it is at the club that does all the PR stuff now (if anyone).

That’s the one- sorry but i can’t link it or post the article in full.

I think the Chronicle is covering it

[Snowflake Royal]

How hard is this ffs:

"Silence can be golden or deafening. Which is it,"

"We’ve always had a policy of piping down during periods of exclusivity. The whole point of Sell Before We Dai was to raise awareness of Reading’s plight for potential new ownership and pressure Dai Yongge into selling the club. So, when the club is apparently being sold, we put ourselves in the background, with our political work continuing behind the scenes.

"However, we’ve also always had a policy of being led by the fans and it’s clear there is a fast-growing disquiet about the total silence from the club.

"Truthfully, we’re a bit torn on this. On the one hand, the silence could be golden. Professional buyers wanting to do due diligence with anonymity and without media distraction is understandable, and, equally, we appreciate that the club do not want a repeat of the Rob Couhig situation – the disappointment felt so much worse because it felt like we were so close.

"However, the silence is now creeping into deafening. We have three main concerns:

Short-term funding

"Reading’s previous statements have assured us the club will be funded until a transaction has been completed. Does this remain the case?

"Are we at risk of another fire sale of our best young talent, behind the back of our manager? As a reminder, the most extreme fan action was triggered by fans being lied to regarding player sales.

"Confirmation that the club remains in a period of exclusivity with a potential buyer

"A simple yes or no will do here. You can keep the specifics, but you can – and should – give fans reassurance.

Confirmation the club can be sold

"Again, a simple yes or no will do here. You will have seen the same rumours and media articles we have – essentially saying the club is “unsellable”. You can keep the specifics, but you can give fans reassurance.

"We know that every time STAR push for updates, they are met with NDA-related barriers, but it is the club’s responsibility to update fans, not STAR’s.

"With that in mind, we have taken some legal advice and the liberty of writing you a statement we believe would update fans – and without breaching confidentiality agreements. It calls on publicly available information, refers to previous statements and, though it remains light on detail, it is heavy on reassurance.

"Fans don’t expect every detail and this isn’t about performative communication. It’s basic customer service to tell your fans that the single biggest issue facing our club is being worked on.

"If you can’t provide an update as vague as the one we have provided, the volume of fan concerns will get louder with each passing day we’re met by silence."

[Sutekh]

You just can't please anyone any of the time. We've had a "noisy" exclusivity period which built everyone's hopes up then dashed them all at the last minute. Now there's a dead quiet exclusivity going on where the club have already said funding of the club will be covered until the sale is completed (they even reference that in their statement) and they're starting to get uppity.

Exclusivity is meant to be covered in dead silence, and in selling a club there is not meant to be any confirmation as to the buyers or the proposed deal until the FL sign it all off. So I'd say all is what it is expected to be.

Are they really asking the club to provide a weekly statement that will more or less say the same thing each time? All we know is that a party is in talks currently and there is no reportable news at this moment in time. Something will happen one way or another at some point, they aren't just going to forget about it and walk away without saying anything.

Yes we'd all like to know timescales and exactly what's going on but we've had that before and it's not been a good outcome so just let it go. The Chinese want to sell and some group out there seems to want to buy. Whatever happens the period of exclusivity will likely continue to be filled by wild speculation and comedy rumours anyway.