Madejski's comments to BBC Radio Berkshire

[brendywendy]

its not asset stripping to sell your best players when their price offered is above what they are really worth-buying cheap and selling expensive isnt asset stripping, its great business

Who for? JM? He's obtained a lot of positive publicity from his association with RFC. I do hope that he's not intending to collect back everything he's "loaned" to the club. That would be improper in the circumstances.

improper for a business man to ask for loans to be repayed??

eh?

have i missed something
you must be thinking of some other chairman anyway

[Big Ern]

its not asset stripping to sell your best players when their price offered is above what they are really worth-buying cheap and selling expensive isnt asset stripping, its great business

Who for? JM? He's obtained a lot of positive publicity from his association with RFC. I do hope that he's not intending to collect back everything he's "loaned" to the club. That would be improper in the circumstances.

To be fair, it is his money so he is entitled to it. John Madejski is not a charity, he is a business man, and whenever the club is sold, the one guarnatee is that John Madejski will be the real winner.

[Man Friday]

Good post BR2, I share many of your sentiments. Staying up didn't require massive investment. It required replacing Sidwell with a like-for-like footballer which would have cost around £5m. The investment would have paid for itself. We (JM) would have recouped it within the first month of this season.

[Man Friday]

its not asset stripping to sell your best players when their price offered is above what they are really worth-buying cheap and selling expensive isnt asset stripping, its great business

Who for? JM? He's obtained a lot of positive publicity from his association with RFC. I do hope that he's not intending to collect back everything he's "loaned" to the club. That would be improper in the circumstances.

To be fair, it is his money so he is entitled to it. John Madejski is not a charity, he is a business man, and whenever the club is sold, the one guarnatee is that John Madejski will be the real winner.

I can just about live with that if he's upfront about it and doesn't project the "great benefactor" role.

[Man Friday]

its not asset stripping to sell your best players when their price offered is above what they are really worth-buying cheap and selling expensive isnt asset stripping, its great business

Who for? JM? He's obtained a lot of positive publicity from his association with RFC. I do hope that he's not intending to collect back everything he's "loaned" to the club. That would be improper in the circumstances.

improper for a business man to ask for loans to be repayed??

eh?

have i missed something
you must be thinking of some other chairman anyway

He's obtained enough (financially, status-wise, relationship-wise, MBE, etc) from his association with the club - to get all his money back on top of all that would be unjust.

[Silver Fox]

The overriding thoughts from JM's comments are what ever we do we must not get back into the horrible expensive Premier League, and he will make damn sure we dont.

Erm, no they aren't.

APologies if this has been picked up on before, I'm just punishing myself with a trawl through the "interesting" opinions on this threa and this one really stood out for me

[Royal Rother]

He's obtained enough (financially, status-wise, relationship-wise, MBE, etc) from his association with the club - to get all his money back on top of all that would be unjust.

WOW! I don't know what to say to that. What a very odd view.

[brendywendy]

LOLOLOLOLOL
thats just daft, really really daft

anyway-he can be a good business man and get his money back as well as
also being a great benefactor since he has bankrolled us through years of lossmaking, and playing infront of an empty shed etc

[Man Friday]

As someone said earlier on this thread, investing in a football club is different from the commercial world and owners are expected to "lose" money. Owners (Jack Walker, etc) inject vast (to most of us, anyway) sums money into their club without really expecting to get any of it back. It's what owners of football clubs do. God help Chelsea if their owner wants his £150m (and counting) back - unless he can wait 50 years or so.

[rfc58]

its not asset stripping to sell your best players when their price offered is above what they are really worth-buying cheap and selling expensive isnt asset stripping, its great business

I see what you are getting at with that comment and its hard to argue differently, but when the money on offer to compete on the higher stage is vastly different to whats available at the CCC level, we as a club hint that we want to be on the top table.

So the point I am making is, we sell a player, replace them with players that are NOT good enough to get us back up, if that proves to be the case, I believe crowds and revenue will drop further.. so I ask how long term its good business.

It seems the short term gains will eventually be out weighed by the long term future.

If the new player(s) combined with the current squad gets us up, my arguement is proved null and void... but thats a BIG IF !

[Stranded]

So just because Walker wanted to give back some of his fortune to the club he loved and RA has money to burn, JM should plough millions of his own money into the club because that's the way of the footballing world.

Just because something is the apparent status quo doesn't make the correct way to work.

[brendywendy]

.

[brendywendy]

As someone said earlier on this thread, investing in a football club is different from the commercial world and owners are expected to "lose" money. Owners (Jack Walker, etc) inject vast (to most of us, anyway) sums money into their club without really expecting to get any of it back. It's what owners of football clubs do. God help Chelsea if their owner wants his £150m (and counting) back - unless he can wait 50 years or so.

well mr mad is different, a business man who rightly wants a return on his investment


not least because there is no mystery benefactor who wants to pour cash into our club, without hope of return

[Royal With Cheese]

mr mad is different, a business man who rightly wants a return on his investment

You've hit the nail on the head. there Brendy. I wouldn't have a problem with this if:

a) He'd been completely upfront about that
b) He didn't constantly moan about how the supporters (or, anyone else other than him) should be putting more money into the club
c) The sanctimonious bravado and ego stroking exhibited by his pich side saunters
d) The mysterious lack of willingness to gain revenue with a possible branding of the stadium and, finally
e) The worry that once his goal of a knighthood is achieved he'll more or less drop us like a stone

I realise that e) is pure conjecture (and a bit tongue in cheek) but I do have major concerns over a), b) and d). I feel I should point out that c) irritates me greatly.

[Platypuss]

mr mad is different, a business man who rightly wants a return on his investment

You've hit the nail on the head. there Brendy. I wouldn't have a problem with this if:

a) He'd been completely upfront about that
b) He didn't constantly moan about how the supporters (or, anyone else other than him) should be putting more money into the club
c) The sanctimonious bravado and ego stroking exhibited by his pich side saunters
d) The mysterious lack of willingness to gain revenue with a possible branding of the stadium and, finally
e) The worry that once his goal of a knighthood is achieved he'll more or less drop us like a stone

I realise that e) is pure conjecture (and a bit tongue in cheek) but I do have major concerns over a), b) and d). I feel I should point out that c) irritates me greatly.

Find it hard to disagree with this view. Mr Mad does seem to want to have his cake and eat it.

Exhibit b for point c) - making himself pride of place in the team photo year after year. What's that all about? Even SImon Jordan doesn't go that far.

[IMAMATEOFJOVSKY]

Before taking over as chairman, nobody in the community had heard of John Hurst - his background was an advertising space seller for the Evening Post and then equal owner of the Thames Valley Trader aka Hurst Publishing

He saw taking over Reading as a way of getting his name into the public arena - no problem with that

However, he has since used this position, in any and every way, to fully maximise on growing his ego i.e Stadium Name. He has used Reading FC to his advantage, and if it wasnt for the club he would have always been local businessman John Hurst. And if the accounts are looked at since his arrival, he isnt going to lose any of his own fortune in the club, BOE base rate plus small margin makes sure that he gets everything back plus interest plus name exposure.

Even this week his rant about players wages made the papers and the TV. His position as John Hurst, local businessman wouldnt have even made the local rag.

Reading FC has served the guy well - lets not lose sight of that!

[Stranded]

I still fail to see how anyone can thing someone would take over an ailing 3rd tier club, playing in a shed in a footballing backwater as a way to become famous.

There are many easier ways to acheive the "fame" that JM has.

[Wycombe Royal]

You know what - I couldn't care less. He has been good for RFC, very good in fact, and he has built us a football club that now has a very sound financial football in an arena of financial uncertainty.

[Royal With Cheese]

Before taking over as chairman, nobody in the community had heard of John Hurst - his background was an advertising space seller for the Evening Post and then equal owner of the Thames Valley Trader aka Hurst Publishing

He saw taking over Reading as a way of getting his name into the public arena - no problem with that

However, he has since used this position, in any and every way, to fully maximise on growing his ego i.e Stadium Name. He has used Reading FC to his advantage, and if it wasnt for the club he would have always been local businessman John Hurst. And if the accounts are looked at since his arrival, he isnt going to lose any of his own fortune in the club, BOE base rate plus small margin makes sure that he gets everything back plus interest plus name exposure.

Even this week his rant about players wages made the papers and the TV. His position as John Hurst, local businessman wouldnt have even made the local rag.

Reading FC has served the guy well - lets not lose sight of that!

I was just about to post something similar.

It is virtually impossible to calculate the worth of the publicity JM has gained by becoming chairman and his subsequent actions.

Again it's the brilliance of the man that he has a significant portion of the fottballing public still believing we owe him something.

JM has been good for RFC but RFC has been spectacular for JM.

[rfc58]

You know what - I couldn't care less. He has been good for RFC, very good in fact, and he has built us a football club that now has a very sound financial football in an arena of financial uncertainty.

Do you think if the club had been a little more speculative whilst in the top flight we might still be there ?