When will Star hold the owners to account?

[windermereROYAL]

I`ve read somewhere that STAR have requested a meeting with upper management, if this is granted then some difficult questions need to be asked.
The owners are very quiet and have been since they took over...why? all we need to know is their vision for the future.
speaking of the future, does the club have one, will we have a club in 5 years time?
Why is Kia seemingly running this club into the ground with endless foreign failures and why does he hold so much influence behind the scenes? he`s just an agent and a bad one at that.

There are faceless people at boardroom level, there were plenty in the directors box last night, who are they?
Somebody needs to be accountable for the mess we are in now and have been for nearly 5 years.

STAR have the authority to ask these questions, do your duty.

[STAR Liaison]

Meeting arranged for Friday 21 January.

[windermereROYAL]

Well ask the flaming difficult questions then, the club is an absolute shambles, I`m seriously worried about the future, and the fans are abandoning the club in their thousands.
You are our mouthpiece ask why we keep employing managers that are out of their depth?

[Sutekh]

Well ask the flaming difficult questions then, the club is an absolute shambles, I`m seriously worried about the future, and the fans are abandoning the club in their thousands.
You are our mouthpiece ask why we keep employing managers that are out of their depth?

Agree with this one totally. Issues on the playing side are somewhat down to the poor managerial appointments made since the summer of 2016, yet when the club found Mark Bowen who steadied the ship and seemed to have a bit of plan to build on he was suddenly discharged for no apparent reason in favour of the next appointment.

Is it possible to get assurances that the club will take the time between now and the summer (as it seems VP will not have his current agreement renewed then) to take thoughts/advice from people experienced in the English game, who have an affection for the club (eg. Brian McDermott, Steve Coppell), in its research to find the next incumbent?

[YorkshireRoyal99]

The only issue with this meeting today is that the board will only tell us what they want to know. The only thing I have ever heard about Kia Joorabchian from the board is that the club haven't paid a penny for his services, rightly so given where we are now. But they don't even tell us what his "services" are and what his plans are. If he's involved, give him a role within the club and let's get some answers on what he is trying to achieve. That's normally what I would say for anyone we are getting "advice" from, but it's clear this hasn't worked, so just cut ties.

I mentioned it on another thread a couple of days ago, if this unofficial staff member is taking the reigns and is classed as an important decision-maker, then how undermined must you feel being Paunovic, Stabler and Gilkes when you are members of 3 out of 4 members (the other being Dayong Pang) of our "transfer board" but yet somebody else calls the shots.

[Barney]

What time is the meeting ? Any news yet ?

[Hendo]

Jeez, give them chance to type up the minutes

[Barney]

Type up the minutes ???? Sounds very 1990s.

Just a few headlines would be nice.

[STAR Liaison]

Sorry, Barney, it's not as instant as you and others might like. The terms of these SD meetings are that we give the club a chance to comment on our take / report of the meeting. So all we've got for you at the moment is ...

STAR had a useful and longer than usual meeting today (21 Jan 2022) with four senior RFC execs (Dayong Pang, Bryan Stabler, Mark Bradley and Jackie Evans). We put over the concerns that we have and that many fans have expressed about the state of the club. We learned some new and positive details about key areas of the club. We made suggestions about engaging with the fan base and Fan Led Review which were listened to carefully. Under the terms of these SD meetings the report that we’ll write up will, as usual, be vetted by the club for fairness and be published by us early next week. We thank fans for their patience with this and for your support overall.

[Barney]

Sorry, Barney, it's not as instant as you and others might like. The terms of these SD meetings are that we give the club a chance to comment on our take / report of the meeting. So all we've got for you at the moment is ...

STAR had a useful and longer than usual meeting today (21 Jan 2022) with four senior RFC execs (Dayong Pang, Bryan Stabler, Mark Bradley and Jackie Evans). We put over the concerns that we have and that many fans have expressed about the state of the club. We learned some new and positive details about key areas of the club. We made suggestions about engaging with the fan base and Fan Led Review which were listened to carefully. Under the terms of these SD meetings the report that we’ll write up will, as usual, be vetted by the club for fairness and be published by us early next week. We thank fans for their patience with this and for your support overall.

Sensible. I understand. Like most RFC fans I am eager to know what the owners or senior Execs think of the current situation.
Thanks for replying.

[RG30]

and be published by us early next week

Any reason for the delay?

[donh99]

and be published by us early next week

Any reason for the delay?

Minutes available here:-

https://t.co/HwEzJdqXcO

[Pepe the Horseman]

Fair play guys, asked all the right questions and didn't hold back. Good work.

[STAR Liaison]

Thanks, Pepe.

Here's the more convenient link via STAR WEBSITE https://star-reading.org/news/star-stru ... reading-fc -

You might also glance at some of our stuff while you're there ....

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Thank you.

FWIW the club's response re Kia doesn't make a lot of sense, I'm sure he was around during the Thai's tenure

[Lower West]

Thank you for asking the questions. Responses from the club sounded very corporate, rehearsed and matter of fact. As they'll know the mood from browsing this forum along with the general decline in match attendances. The best owners of any business are those with a real passion and drive. An ability to communicate clearly their vision. I suspect the current failures are much about a cultural and political divide. Money alone doesn't buy success. Seems we will continue to drift aimlessly for the foreseeable future. As there's nothing to suggest any significant change.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Thank you for asking the questions. Responses from the club sounded very corporate, rehearsed and matter of fact. As they'll know the mood from browsing this forum along with the general decline in match attendances. The best owners of any business are those with a real passion and drive. An ability to communicate clearly their vision. I suspect the current failures are much about a cultural and political divide. Money alone doesn't buy success. Seems we will continue to drift aimlessly for the foreseeable future. As there's nothing to suggest any significant change.

I think a lot of the investment, from a business perspective, has been done to improve the profile of the club. We just do not make that much money from an investors point of view. I know a lot of people say "we gambled to make the Premier League", I don't think that's the sole reason behind our current position now. I think the Dai's have put an incredible amount of money into the club in an attempt to make us profitable in the future, as well as improve our profile on and off the pitch. Obviously, one of the goals to improving both profits and profile is to reach the Premier League, I just don't think the owners bought the club and said "right, all out for the Premier League". I think there has been a "commercial plan" to invest so that the club can turnover higher amounts of money. We've been in the Championship for two decades and, by and large, we've not had one of the biggest turnover's despite playing in the Premier League. In terms of our overall investment, from 2005-2015 we've definitely outperformed on the field in respect to our financial outlook, which I think the Dai's have come in to try and improve so that we can sustainably stay as a top Championship club with a view to becoming an established Premier League side in the long-term.

As many of us have pointed out, with the wage bill needing to be somewhere around £16m by the summer, that would represent one of the lowest budgets in the league, as that is respective considering our income. I cannot fault the Dai's for the investment to try and make the club more profitable and to try and manufacture the club to have a higher turnover so that we can flexibly offer players more lucrative Championship wages, but it just hasn't happened that way as of right now which we have been punished for, rightly so.

[South Coast Royal]

Thank you for asking the questions. Responses from the club sounded very corporate, rehearsed and matter of fact. As they'll know the mood from browsing this forum along with the general decline in match attendances. The best owners of any business are those with a real passion and drive. An ability to communicate clearly their vision. I suspect the current failures are much about a cultural and political divide. Money alone doesn't buy success. Seems we will continue to drift aimlessly for the foreseeable future. As there's nothing to suggest any significant change.

Also, despite pressing from Star , no answer regarding the manager's future or his part in how we have ended up where we are.
Maybe the corporate response ( as with our current political leader) will always be that the manager is being backed until...................presumably if and when we are in the bottom 3 and relegation becomes even more likely (and we know would then be too late).

Some good questioning from Star and the message of discontent and disenfranchisement has surely been taken on board.

[Lower West]

Thank you for asking the questions. Responses from the club sounded very corporate, rehearsed and matter of fact. As they'll know the mood from browsing this forum along with the general decline in match attendances. The best owners of any business are those with a real passion and drive. An ability to communicate clearly their vision. I suspect the current failures are much about a cultural and political divide. Money alone doesn't buy success. Seems we will continue to drift aimlessly for the foreseeable future. As there's nothing to suggest any significant change.

I think a lot of the investment, from a business perspective, has been done to improve the profile of the club. We just do not make that much money from an investors point of view. I know a lot of people say "we gambled to make the Premier League", I don't think that's the sole reason behind our current position now. I think the Dai's have put an incredible amount of money into the club in an attempt to make us profitable in the future, as well as improve our profile on and off the pitch. Obviously, one of the goals to improving both profits and profile is to reach the Premier League, I just don't think the owners bought the club and said "right, all out for the Premier League". I think there has been a "commercial plan" to invest so that the club can turnover higher amounts of money. We've been in the Championship for two decades and, by and large, we've not had one of the biggest turnover's despite playing in the Premier League. In terms of our overall investment, from 2005-2015 we've definitely outperformed on the field in respect to our financial outlook, which I think the Dai's have come in to try and improve so that we can sustainably stay as a top Championship club with a view to becoming an established Premier League side in the long-term.

As many of us have pointed out, with the wage bill needing to be somewhere around £16m by the summer, that would represent one of the lowest budgets in the league, as that is respective considering our income. I cannot fault the Dai's for the investment to try and make the club more profitable and to try and manufacture the club to have a higher turnover so that we can flexibly offer players more lucrative Championship wages, but it just hasn't happened that way as of right now which we have been punished for, rightly so.

Nah. Dai gambled and failed. Just the like the other two clubs in his stewardship. As I said in my post. There's a cultural gulf that's being exposed. Chinese mentality is so very different.

[windermereROYAL]

So in a nutshell the meeting was a complete waste of time, downright and utter lies regarding Kia.
Plenty of nice words but no action will be taken until the summer when of course it will be too late.