SJM interview with BBC

[tink]

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I'd like to think the sigi money would have plugged a whole, but i suspect that week in, week out, the club probably still runs at a loss. It's been said before, and it'll be said again, but i'll say it now for good measure, the running costs of the club are surely going to be eating away at any surplus, i'm talking things like electricity bills, ground rents, policing bills etc, on top of all the usual outgoings like transfer fees and players wages.

I think most of what SJM does is fire-fighting. He has to keep ticket prices fairly low to keep bums on seats, but by doing so, he is probably running the club on a day by day loss. Raising prices would possibly increase revenue, so we might not need to sell players, but it runs the risk of deterring fans, thereby making an even greater loss.

I reckon SJM is between a rock and a hard place, and the only realistic way of making serious revenue is to sell the odd player now and again.

And i for one think we have a lot to thank for him for, so i will say that he hasn't done much wrong since he took over and i feel quite comfortable with him in charge for the time being.

[Royal Rother]

Here come the conspiracy brigade, making a mountain out of a single comment that tells them nothing.

Why on earth did he make the comment then Dimwit other than to prepare for a let down. Perhaps if he dropped his egotastical price tag he might get rid of the club and us of him.

He has absolulely no interest in taking this club forward in football terms but will agree to the sale of players to benefit John Madejski.

You want a conspiracy Ian? where's the ( Sigi ) money gone ?

[Ian Royal]

Dear conspiracy theorists.

The Sig money has gone the same place as all the rest... into the club. You won't believe this because you don't want to. This and every other transfer fee & Premier League income we've received has already been explained to you at least 20 times, you just ignore the answer and facts presented because you prefer your own ill-informed, superficial prejudice.

SJM is saying exactly the same thing he always says when asked these sorts of questions.
He will sell to someone who can be trusted to look after us, and has the money to do moer than he can. How many of the big money buyers we've seen come in for clubs would you actually want to buy us? Because most of them shaft their clubs over majorly within a few years.
We will continue to sell our more valuable, big earners and replace them with promising but mostly unproven players. This is because keeping them is pretty unlikely even if we wanted to.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

The worst case scenario would be JM having to sell the club, at a lower price and to someone who was a crook. He cannot continue to keep pumping money into the print business, the money has to come from somewere, lets hope it is not from the sale of the club..

[glass half full]

Breaking news:
HNA Consortium raid piggy banks to fund purchase of club. A spokesman for the group told our correspondent: "All we need is that extra £100,000,000 and we are there. If we raise the money, we guarantee that no players will be sold, ticket prices will be reduced to £5.00 per match, there will be free car parking and bus travel to the ground, Messi has said that he may be interested in transferring to a club with ambition in the Thames Valley area. Oh, and I nearly forgot! Any supporter who may feel a little hungover may stay free at the Millenium Madejski Hotel on presentation of a copy of his latest criticism of the way that the current regime is running the club...."

[Super Kevin Bremner!]

Excited about seeing some of the youngsters come through anyway to be fair, which this 'cutting our cloth' scenario has encouraged/made essential.

Jake Taylor and Jordan Obita have big reputations and are tipped to play at a really high level, Lawson D'Ath and Frankie Raymond are also being touted quite a bit and are big players for the Academy, so it's a littl bit rosier than a lot of people think.

We have a lot of decent attacking youngsters coming through and finally, FINALLY, we're getting to see em play.

Who knows how many more Gylfi's we've got if we don't give them a chance in the first team.

[Always_Royal]

Excited about seeing some of the youngsters come through anyway to be fair, which this 'cutting our cloth' scenario has encouraged/made essential.

Jake Taylor and Jordan Obita have big reputations and are tipped to play at a really high level, Lawson D'Ath and Frankie Raymond are also being touted quite a bit and are big players for the Academy, so it's a littl bit rosier than a lot of people think.

We have a lot of decent attacking youngsters coming through and finally, FINALLY, we're getting to see em play.

Who knows how many more Gylfi's we've got if we don't give them a chance in the first team.

Good post. Mind you I'd hoped that Davies and Kelly would have a better chance.

Also if we had a shortfall of £4m at the start of last season then it is reasonable to assume we will have a similar shortfall next season. The money has to come from somewhere.

[Who Moved The Goalposts?]

Also if we had a shortfall of £4m at the start of last season then it is reasonable to assume we will have a similar shortfall next season. The money has to come from somewhere.

I don't think it be as much - with the departures last year, we must have saved around £2m on wages(some may have increased elsewhere by a bit no doubt). I would be very surprised if they said the shortfall was £4m again.

[loyalroyal4life]

Anyone watch that Alan Sugar documentary last night? 14 prem clubs are in the red, quite refreshing to know that WHEN we go up, we won't be one of those clubs.

It seems borrowed debt is the only way to bring in a floodgate of new, high earners!

[RobRoyal]

Quite frankly, anyone who can't see we've massively overachieved since coming up in 2002 is blind, and anyone who thinks only such overachievement is acceptable, is an idiot.

Can't really put it any better than this.

[Forbury Lion]

My fear is that JM will cash in and we'll end up with maverick owners who saddle the club with debt and maybe end up selling the ground.

[leicsRoyal]

My fear is that JM will cash in and we'll end up with maverick owners who saddle the club with debt and maybe end up selling the ground.

Couldn't agree more!

As long as SJM is here it is extremely unlikely that we will ever be challenging for honours in the premier league, certainly not on a regular basis.
On the flip side of this it is also extremely unlikely that we will lose the financial security that SJM ensures is at the top of the list for this football club.

I for one am not interested in seeing players on stupid wages at RFC, and that's the only way to bring more success, it's just not what supporting the club is about for me.

[Super Kevin Bremner!]

Another big factor that's overlooked is that it ain't all about the players. We have a decent squad but it ain't the best in the league. McDermott has got what we have gelling and he plays a confident brand of football both home and away.

Thats not to say we turn up every week and play like Barcelona, but no team does (apart from Barcelona of course).

For example, take the squad at Sheff Utd, and give them a season with BM. would that squad have been relegated?

As long as we keep getting the manager right, money ain't gonna be as important as everybody thinks.

[under the tin]

My fear is that JM will cash in and we'll end up with maverick owners who saddle the club with debt and maybe end up selling the ground.

Couldn't agree more!

As long as the premier league has super rich oligarches involved with a few clubs it is extremely unlikely that anyone, let alone Reading, will ever be challenging for honours in the premier league, certainly not on a regular basis.

Corrected for you.

On the flip side of this it is also extremely unlikely that we will lose the financial security that SJM ensures is at the top of the list for this football club.

I for one am not interested in seeing players on stupid wages at RFC, and that's the only way to bring more success, it's just not what supporting the club is about for me.

[under the tin]

Another big factor that's overlooked is that it ain't all about the players. We have a decent squad but it ain't the best in the league. McDermott has got what we have gelling and he plays a confident brand of football both home and away.

Thats not to say we turn up every week and play like Barcelona, but no team does (apart from Barcelona of course).

For example, take the squad at Sheff Utd, and give them a season with BM. would that squad have been relegated?

As long as we keep getting the manager right, money ain't gonna be as important as everybody thinks.

Spot on. The manager is the most important signing that any club makes.
Get it wrong, and millions get wasted. Newcastle turned this into an artform.
Get it right, as we have with McGhee, Pardew, Coppell and McDermott, and you get sutained success.

[loyalroyal4life]

My fear is that JM will cash in and we'll end up with maverick owners who saddle the club with debt and maybe end up selling the ground.

Well thats what most prem clubs consist of, we would fit right in

[andrew1957]

I was very critical of the sale of Siggy last season because I thought (and still think) it was a short sighted decision as he would have been worth even more this summer.

However, in general I have always supported the Chairman's financially prudent approach. Anyone watching the Lord Sugar programme on Sunday night will realise that football finances are insane. Wigan have accumulated £70M in debt just to stay in the PL - Dave Whelan (who has funded all that debt himself) will most likely lose all that money if they get relegated - but why should he? He said in the programme he would be lucky to get £10 for the club.

The reality is that Reading can never become an established PL club unless the whole of football starts cutting its proverbial cloth.

As for this summer the likes of Kebe, Fed and Long have done very well for us and I will be pleased for them if a bigger club comes in for them and pays us decent money. I just hope that a small proportion of the 12M or so raised will be reinvested.

The reality is we are a selling club. In fact arguably even Man Unt are a selling club (Ronaldo for 80M). There will always be someone willing to pay your players more until things change across the board.

[Royal Rother]

Every club is a selling club if the right offer comes in for their players.

[Drew_3]

Some of the comments in this and other threads make me laugh. I read things like we are over achieving, one person in this thread suggesting we have done so since 2002!! Tell me how do you propose to be successful and continue to grow as a club if its not to keep pushing forward and achieving more each year?

That sort of comment is what stops people and organisations from getting to the top, "well done people we have done really well, but you can relax now and take your foot of the gas because, I mean really we have done far better than we should have, so who gives a stuff if we balls it up from here!!".

What a load of crap!!

[Maguire]

You seem to be failing to understand I'm not saying we'll do anything like the sort... I'm being sarcastic at an STG.

Okay fair play Ian, apologies