Potential New Owners

[From Despair To Where?]

This great British team that had 2 Americans, 2 Irish, 1 Icelandic and one Senegalese player in it's starting 11.

Plus an Irishman, an Icelander and a Congolese refugee on the bench.

Karbota thinks the white players are British, because he's a racist twunt

C4y

[Snowflake Royal]

This great British team that had 2 Americans, 2 Irish, 1 Icelandic and one Senegalese player in it's starting 11.

Plus an Irishman, an Icelander and a Congolese refugee on the bench.

Karbota thinks the white players are British, because he's a racist twunt

C4y

Correction accepted

[Ten Bobsworth]

It all seems to have gone off piste on this thread, but that's not unusual. I'm afraid there's a strong whiff of folk with hands over their eyes (or ears, or both) firing off in all daft directions. Nowt unusual in that either.
Its all a bit of a mess for sure but if you wanted somebody to clear up the mess you would DEFINITELY NOT be looking in the direction of anyone like CLUELESS Kieran (Maguire).

[SCIAG]

So, let's say that yesterday's protest has convinced Dai to sell, the next step is to find/convince someone to buy us.

Is there anything we fans can do to help find a buyer?

Google “billionaires”.

Go down the list, and get contact details for each one.

Call them up and ask them if they’d like to waste a load of money on a football club.

Statistically at some point one of them will say yes.

Maybe we can convince Elon Musk to rename us “XFC” and help get advertisers back on his website.

[Linden Jones' Tash]

So, let's say that yesterday's protest has convinced Dai to sell, the next step is to find/convince someone to buy us.

Is there anything we fans can do to help find a buyer?

Google “billionaires”.

Go down the list, and get contact details for each one.

Call them up and ask them if they’d like to waste a load of money on a football club.

Statistically at some point one of them will say yes.

Maybe we can convince Elon Musk to rename us “XFC” and help get advertisers back on his website.

say this happens, isn't it just a sticking plaster and we'll end up in the same boat when they get bored and the fans get on their backs

English football is broken and until that is addressed, nothing will really change

But I understood the aim was to ditch the sugar daddy model and get an owner who will follow a 'sustainable' path for the club - whatever that means...

[Snowflake Royal]

So, let's say that yesterday's protest has convinced Dai to sell, the next step is to find/convince someone to buy us.

Is there anything we fans can do to help find a buyer?

Google “billionaires”.

Go down the list, and get contact details for each one.

Call them up and ask them if they’d like to waste a load of money on a football club.

Statistically at some point one of them will say yes.

Maybe we can convince Elon Musk to rename us “XFC” and help get advertisers back on his website.

say this happens, isn't it just a sticking plaster and we'll end up in the same boat when they get bored and the fans get on their backs

English football is broken and until that is addressed, nothing will really change

But I understood the aim was to ditch the sugar daddy model and get an owner who will follow a 'sustainable' path for the club - whatever that means...

Not if they manage us in a vaguely competent and sustainable fashion.

We are where we are because Dai didn't.

Increase our wage bill from ~£25m to ~£44m in the Championship with no parachute payments
Refuse to sell Moore for ~£8m
Give Moore a ~£30k a week wage for 4/5 years.
Signing of Ejaria for ~£3m
Signing of Joao for ~£3m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended
Signing of Puscas for ~£7m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended, when we didn't need both
Signing of Aluko for ~£7m when we didn't need him
Refuse to sell Loader for ~£2m
Refuse to sell Swift for ~£5m

There's 10s of millions there that didn't need spending or could have been received to fund the club in a sustainable manner with decent affordable players.


But yes, football ownership is an absolute disgrace.
It's almost harder to run us this badly.

[WestYorksRoyal]

The end of SJM's era is how things should look after an owner loses their ability to bankroll. He lost a lot in the financial crash, and we had to sell players to be sustainable. Losing players like Sigurdsson, Long and Mills was necessary, and still left money in the bank for good Championship wages for the likes of Leigertwood, McAnuff and Gorkss. The team promoted in 2012 had sold all their genuine PL talent over the years and was not on the same level as the 2006 team, but we were sustainable.

Whereas there was never a route to sustainable under Dai - we were too far gone.

But agree the industry is broken. But we say this about another club every year. How often will we keep saying it?

Our unique problem is our owner won't sell. We'd be another Derby if he did; unpleasant but not a disaster. I'd probably say what happened to the likes of Derby and Wigan is a natural correction of spending and survivable for affected clubs. But what do you do if an owner stops supporting a club while also denying others the chance to rescue them?

[Sutekh]

Google “billionaires”.

Go down the list, and get contact details for each one.

Call them up and ask them if they’d like to waste a load of money on a football club.

Statistically at some point one of them will say yes.

Maybe we can convince Elon Musk to rename us “XFC” and help get advertisers back on his website.

say this happens, isn't it just a sticking plaster and we'll end up in the same boat when they get bored and the fans get on their backs

English football is broken and until that is addressed, nothing will really change

But I understood the aim was to ditch the sugar daddy model and get an owner who will follow a 'sustainable' path for the club - whatever that means...

Not if they manage us in a vaguely competent and sustainable fashion.

We are where we are because Dai didn't.

Increase our wage bill from ~£25m to ~£44m in the Championship with no parachute payments
Refuse to sell Moore for ~£8m
Give Moore a ~£30k a week wage for 4/5 years.
Signing of Ejaria for ~£3m
Signing of Joao for ~£3m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended
Signing of Puscas for ~£7m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended, when we didn't need both
Signing of Aluko for ~£7m when we didn't need him
Refuse to sell Loader for ~£2m
Refuse to sell Swift for ~£5m

There's 10s of millions there that didn't need spending or could have been received to fund the club in a sustainable manner with decent affordable players.


But yes, football ownership is an absolute disgrace.
It's almost harder to run us this badly.

How much of it is down to a) working out a way for TV money to be fairly allocated so you don't get the ridiculous gaps between clubs in the same divisions and b) changing the mindset of idiot supporters who think it's the end of the world if their club isn't spending shedloads on new players every window.

[Linden Jones' Tash]

say this happens, isn't it just a sticking plaster and we'll end up in the same boat when they get bored and the fans get on their backs

English football is broken and until that is addressed, nothing will really change

But I understood the aim was to ditch the sugar daddy model and get an owner who will follow a 'sustainable' path for the club - whatever that means...

Not if they manage us in a vaguely competent and sustainable fashion.

We are where we are because Dai didn't.

Increase our wage bill from ~£25m to ~£44m in the Championship with no parachute payments
Refuse to sell Moore for ~£8m
Give Moore a ~£30k a week wage for 4/5 years.
Signing of Ejaria for ~£3m
Signing of Joao for ~£3m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended
Signing of Puscas for ~£7m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended, when we didn't need both
Signing of Aluko for ~£7m when we didn't need him
Refuse to sell Loader for ~£2m
Refuse to sell Swift for ~£5m

There's 10s of millions there that didn't need spending or could have been received to fund the club in a sustainable manner with decent affordable players.


But yes, football ownership is an absolute disgrace.
It's almost harder to run us this badly.

How much of it is down to a) working out a way for TV money to be fairly allocated so you don't get the ridiculous gaps between clubs in the same divisions and b) changing the mindset of idiot supporters who think it's the end of the world if their club isn't spending shedloads on new players every window.

I'd agree that it is both

Ultimately the FA Premier League created the gulf that makes it an unsustainable arms race in terms of transfer fees and, more importantly, player wages.

I'm not against people getting paid as much as they can get - but when ordinary championship players are on £1.5M a year to play in front of £15k crowds, nothing makes sense anymore.

I'm old enough to remember when selling players as part of the Reading Way, was moaned about on here - there is no simple solution

[Ten Bobsworth]

Not if they manage us in a vaguely competent and sustainable fashion.

We are where we are because Dai didn't.

Increase our wage bill from ~£25m to ~£44m in the Championship with no parachute payments
Refuse to sell Moore for ~£8m
Give Moore a ~£30k a week wage for 4/5 years.
Signing of Ejaria for ~£3m
Signing of Joao for ~£3m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended
Signing of Puscas for ~£7m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended, when we didn't need both
Signing of Aluko for ~£7m when we didn't need him
Refuse to sell Loader for ~£2m
Refuse to sell Swift for ~£5m

There's 10s of millions there that didn't need spending or could have been received to fund the club in a sustainable manner with decent affordable players.


But yes, football ownership is an absolute disgrace.
It's almost harder to run us this badly.

How much of it is down to a) working out a way for TV money to be fairly allocated so you don't get the ridiculous gaps between clubs in the same divisions and b) changing the mindset of idiot supporters who think it's the end of the world if their club isn't spending shedloads on new players every window.

I'd agree that it is both

Ultimately the FA Premier League created the gulf that makes it an unsustainable arms race in terms of transfer fees and, more importantly, player wages.

I'm not against people getting paid as much as they can get - but when ordinary championship players are on £1.5M a year to play in front of £15k crowds, nothing makes sense anymore.

I'm old enough to remember when selling players as part of the Reading Way, was moaned about on here - there is no simple solution

LJT sounds too sensible to me. You can't have folk coming on here being sensible.
BAN HIM.

[Millsy]

Google “billionaires”.

Go down the list, and get contact details for each one.

Call them up and ask them if they’d like to waste a load of money on a football club.

Statistically at some point one of them will say yes.

Maybe we can convince Elon Musk to rename us “XFC” and help get advertisers back on his website.

say this happens, isn't it just a sticking plaster and we'll end up in the same boat when they get bored and the fans get on their backs

English football is broken and until that is addressed, nothing will really change

But I understood the aim was to ditch the sugar daddy model and get an owner who will follow a 'sustainable' path for the club - whatever that means...

Not if they manage us in a vaguely competent and sustainable fashion.

We are where we are because Dai didn't.

Increase our wage bill from ~£25m to ~£44m in the Championship with no parachute payments
Refuse to sell Moore for ~£8m
Give Moore a ~£30k a week wage for 4/5 years.
Signing of Ejaria for ~£3m
Signing of Joao for ~£3m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended
Signing of Puscas for ~£7m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended, when we didn't need both
Signing of Aluko for ~£7m when we didn't need him
Refuse to sell Loader for ~£2m
Refuse to sell Swift for ~£5m

There's 10s of millions there that didn't need spending or could have been received to fund the club in a sustainable manner with decent affordable players.


But yes, football ownership is an absolute disgrace.
It's almost harder to run us this badly.

Yeah was Olisegate under Dai too?

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Google “billionaires”.

Go down the list, and get contact details for each one.

Call them up and ask them if they’d like to waste a load of money on a football club.

Statistically at some point one of them will say yes.

Maybe we can convince Elon Musk to rename us “XFC” and help get advertisers back on his website.

say this happens, isn't it just a sticking plaster and we'll end up in the same boat when they get bored and the fans get on their backs

English football is broken and until that is addressed, nothing will really change

But I understood the aim was to ditch the sugar daddy model and get an owner who will follow a 'sustainable' path for the club - whatever that means...

Not if they manage us in a vaguely competent and sustainable fashion.

We are where we are because Dai didn't.

Increase our wage bill from ~£25m to ~£44m in the Championship with no parachute payments
Refuse to sell Moore for ~£8m
Give Moore a ~£30k a week wage for 4/5 years.
Signing of Ejaria for ~£3m
Signing of Joao for ~£3m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended
Signing of Puscas for ~£7m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended, when we didn't need both
Signing of Aluko for ~£7m when we didn't need him
Refuse to sell Loader for ~£2m
Refuse to sell Swift for ~£5m

There's 10s of millions there that didn't need spending or could have been received to fund the club in a sustainable manner with decent affordable players.


But yes, football ownership is an absolute disgrace.
It's almost harder to run us this badly.

With you on this one Ian as well. Whilst it is being said that it's hard to sustain success by selling your best players all the time, I'd rather we did that and still have a club than throw all that money up the wall and put the future of the club in jeopardy. At the end of the day, you need to cut your cloth accordingly.

[Snowflake Royal]

say this happens, isn't it just a sticking plaster and we'll end up in the same boat when they get bored and the fans get on their backs

English football is broken and until that is addressed, nothing will really change

But I understood the aim was to ditch the sugar daddy model and get an owner who will follow a 'sustainable' path for the club - whatever that means...

Not if they manage us in a vaguely competent and sustainable fashion.

We are where we are because Dai didn't.

Increase our wage bill from ~£25m to ~£44m in the Championship with no parachute payments
Refuse to sell Moore for ~£8m
Give Moore a ~£30k a week wage for 4/5 years.
Signing of Ejaria for ~£3m
Signing of Joao for ~£3m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended
Signing of Puscas for ~£7m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended, when we didn't need both
Signing of Aluko for ~£7m when we didn't need him
Refuse to sell Loader for ~£2m
Refuse to sell Swift for ~£5m

There's 10s of millions there that didn't need spending or could have been received to fund the club in a sustainable manner with decent affordable players.


But yes, football ownership is an absolute disgrace.
It's almost harder to run us this badly.

With you on this one Ian as well. Whilst it is being said that it's hard to sustain success by selling your best players all the time, I'd rather we did that and still have a club than throw all that money up the wall and put the future of the club in jeopardy. At the end of the day, you need to cut your cloth accordingly.

And we made it work under Madjeski.

Kitson, Doyle, Siggy, Long....

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Not if they manage us in a vaguely competent and sustainable fashion.

We are where we are because Dai didn't.

Increase our wage bill from ~£25m to ~£44m in the Championship with no parachute payments
Refuse to sell Moore for ~£8m
Give Moore a ~£30k a week wage for 4/5 years.
Signing of Ejaria for ~£3m
Signing of Joao for ~£3m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended
Signing of Puscas for ~£7m immediately after a soft transfer embargo ended, when we didn't need both
Signing of Aluko for ~£7m when we didn't need him
Refuse to sell Loader for ~£2m
Refuse to sell Swift for ~£5m

There's 10s of millions there that didn't need spending or could have been received to fund the club in a sustainable manner with decent affordable players.


But yes, football ownership is an absolute disgrace.
It's almost harder to run us this badly.

With you on this one Ian as well. Whilst it is being said that it's hard to sustain success by selling your best players all the time, I'd rather we did that and still have a club than throw all that money up the wall and put the future of the club in jeopardy. At the end of the day, you need to cut your cloth accordingly.

And we made it work under Madjeski.

Kitson, Doyle, Siggy, Long....

Yeah I think the only problem is timeframes, when people say "sustainable", how long do they expect that to last? That's the only thing I'd say.

[WestYorksRoyal]

With you on this one Ian as well. Whilst it is being said that it's hard to sustain success by selling your best players all the time, I'd rather we did that and still have a club than throw all that money up the wall and put the future of the club in jeopardy. At the end of the day, you need to cut your cloth accordingly.

And we made it work under Madjeski.

Kitson, Doyle, Siggy, Long....

Yeah I think the only problem is timeframes, when people say "sustainable", how long do they expect that to last? That's the only thing I'd say.

How much money has the Brentford owner put in? In their build up to promotion, it felt like they brought in big transfer fees to finance the squad every season.

[Clyde1998]

And we made it work under Madjeski.

Kitson, Doyle, Siggy, Long....

Yeah I think the only problem is timeframes, when people say "sustainable", how long do they expect that to last? That's the only thing I'd say.

How much money has the Brentford owner put in? In their build up to promotion, it felt like they brought in big transfer fees to finance the squad every season.

They did spend big transfer fees, but that was more than made up by selling at least one player for a big fee each season:

(Figures from TransferMarkt)
2014-15 - Spent £5.6m; Sold £3.8m; Net -£1.8m; Biggest sale - Adam Forshaw (£3.8m to Wigan)
2015-16 - Spent £10.4m; Sold £25.5m; Net +£15.1m; Biggest sale - Andre Gray (£12.4m to Burnley)
2016-17 - Spent £5.2m; Sold £14.4m; Net +£9.3m; Biggest sale - Scott Hogan (£10.5m to Aston Villa)
2017-18 - Spent £11.3m; Sold £15.2m; Net +£3.9m; Biggest sale - Jota Peleteiro (£6.5m to Birmingham)
2018-19 - Spent £6.6m; Sold £35.0m; Net +£28.4m; Biggest sale - Chris Mepham (£13.6m to Bournemouth)
2019-20 - Spent £34.7m; Sold £34.3m; Net -£0.4m; Biggest sale - Neal Maupay (£15.6m to Brighton)
2020-21 - Spent £7.3m; Sold £62.0m; Net +£54.7m; Biggest sale - Ollie Watkins (£34m to Aston Villa)

Basically they were doing what we did in the late-Madejski era.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Yeah I think the only problem is timeframes, when people say "sustainable", how long do they expect that to last? That's the only thing I'd say.

How much money has the Brentford owner put in? In their build up to promotion, it felt like they brought in big transfer fees to finance the squad every season.

They did spend big transfer fees, but that was more than made up by selling at least one player for a big fee each season:

(Figures from TransferMarkt)
2014-15 - Spent £5.6m; Sold £3.8m; Net -£1.8m; Biggest sale - Adam Forshaw (£3.8m to Wigan)
2015-16 - Spent £10.4m; Sold £25.5m; Net +£15.1m; Biggest sale - Andre Gray (£12.4m to Burnley)
2016-17 - Spent £5.2m; Sold £14.4m; Net +£9.3m; Biggest sale - Scott Hogan (£10.5m to Aston Villa)
2017-18 - Spent £11.3m; Sold £15.2m; Net +£3.9m; Biggest sale - Jota Peleteiro (£6.5m to Birmingham)
2018-19 - Spent £6.6m; Sold £35.0m; Net +£28.4m; Biggest sale - Chris Mepham (£13.6m to Bournemouth)
2019-20 - Spent £34.7m; Sold £34.3m; Net -£0.4m; Biggest sale - Neal Maupay (£15.6m to Brighton)
2020-21 - Spent £7.3m; Sold £62.0m; Net +£54.7m; Biggest sale - Ollie Watkins (£34m to Aston Villa)

Basically they were doing what we did in the late-Madejski era.

Those sales are what fuelled in for them and it's where we have fallen on the wrong side significantly under Dai. The season we had a wages-turnover ratio of over 200%, I believe they were second in the table at like 180%. It was obviously taken at a moment in time, but of course selling players for £35m for two seasons were always going to get them through the FFP issues.

I have always questioned whether that model is "sustainable" though, consistently selling players on for big fees.

[WestYorksRoyal]

How much money has the Brentford owner put in? In their build up to promotion, it felt like they brought in big transfer fees to finance the squad every season.

They did spend big transfer fees, but that was more than made up by selling at least one player for a big fee each season:

(Figures from TransferMarkt)
2014-15 - Spent £5.6m; Sold £3.8m; Net -£1.8m; Biggest sale - Adam Forshaw (£3.8m to Wigan)
2015-16 - Spent £10.4m; Sold £25.5m; Net +£15.1m; Biggest sale - Andre Gray (£12.4m to Burnley)
2016-17 - Spent £5.2m; Sold £14.4m; Net +£9.3m; Biggest sale - Scott Hogan (£10.5m to Aston Villa)
2017-18 - Spent £11.3m; Sold £15.2m; Net +£3.9m; Biggest sale - Jota Peleteiro (£6.5m to Birmingham)
2018-19 - Spent £6.6m; Sold £35.0m; Net +£28.4m; Biggest sale - Chris Mepham (£13.6m to Bournemouth)
2019-20 - Spent £34.7m; Sold £34.3m; Net -£0.4m; Biggest sale - Neal Maupay (£15.6m to Brighton)
2020-21 - Spent £7.3m; Sold £62.0m; Net +£54.7m; Biggest sale - Ollie Watkins (£34m to Aston Villa)

Basically they were doing what we did in the late-Madejski era.

Those sales are what fuelled in for them and it's where we have fallen on the wrong side significantly under Dai. The season we had a wages-turnover ratio of over 200%, I believe they were second in the table at like 180%. It was obviously taken at a moment in time, but of course selling players for £35m for two seasons were always going to get them through the FFP issues.

I have always questioned whether that model is "sustainable" though, consistently selling players on for big fees.

It's semi sustainable if you continue recruiting well, and you have contingency plans in the event that you go a couple of years without a big sale.

[Sutekh]

They did spend big transfer fees, but that was more than made up by selling at least one player for a big fee each season:

(Figures from TransferMarkt)
2014-15 - Spent £5.6m; Sold £3.8m; Net -£1.8m; Biggest sale - Adam Forshaw (£3.8m to Wigan)
2015-16 - Spent £10.4m; Sold £25.5m; Net +£15.1m; Biggest sale - Andre Gray (£12.4m to Burnley)
2016-17 - Spent £5.2m; Sold £14.4m; Net +£9.3m; Biggest sale - Scott Hogan (£10.5m to Aston Villa)
2017-18 - Spent £11.3m; Sold £15.2m; Net +£3.9m; Biggest sale - Jota Peleteiro (£6.5m to Birmingham)
2018-19 - Spent £6.6m; Sold £35.0m; Net +£28.4m; Biggest sale - Chris Mepham (£13.6m to Bournemouth)
2019-20 - Spent £34.7m; Sold £34.3m; Net -£0.4m; Biggest sale - Neal Maupay (£15.6m to Brighton)
2020-21 - Spent £7.3m; Sold £62.0m; Net +£54.7m; Biggest sale - Ollie Watkins (£34m to Aston Villa)

Basically they were doing what we did in the late-Madejski era.

Those sales are what fuelled in for them and it's where we have fallen on the wrong side significantly under Dai. The season we had a wages-turnover ratio of over 200%, I believe they were second in the table at like 180%. It was obviously taken at a moment in time, but of course selling players for £35m for two seasons were always going to get them through the FFP issues.

I have always questioned whether that model is "sustainable" though, consistently selling players on for big fees.

It's semi sustainable if you continue recruiting well, and you have contingency plans in the event that you go a couple of years without a big sale.

Two most important things Reading completely failed at that scuppered any chance of being even semi-sustainable; 1 - appalling signings complemented by 2 - a succession of idiot managerial appointments thus reducing whatever hope there may have been to even build something out of what there was however poor it may have been.

[The Cap]

Those sales are what fuelled in for them and it's where we have fallen on the wrong side significantly under Dai. The season we had a wages-turnover ratio of over 200%, I believe they were second in the table at like 180%. It was obviously taken at a moment in time, but of course selling players for £35m for two seasons were always going to get them through the FFP issues.

I have always questioned whether that model is "sustainable" though, consistently selling players on for big fees.

It's semi sustainable if you continue recruiting well, and you have contingency plans in the event that you go a couple of years without a big sale.

Two most important things Reading completely failed at that scuppered any chance of being even semi-sustainable; 1 - appalling signings complemented by 2 - a succession of idiot managerial appointments thus reducing whatever hope there may have been to even build something out of what there was however poor it may have been.

Additionally let's not forget, and I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere, the part that Ron Gormless played in the demise. P45'd a lot of the background staff who were an integral part of the 'Reading way'. As well as throwing inflated contracts around like confetti. Yeah, cheers for that Ronald.