Who is to blame: Madejski or Zingaravic

[Forest Gump]

... for the spectacular decline of our club.
Tipped by many bookmakers as one of the favourites to get promotion this season Reading will no fail even to secure a playoff place.
Normally it would be the manager to get most of the blame but, while some of NA's selections have appeared to be less than logical I think it would
be unfair to blame a manager who was brought in on the basis of various undertakings that have clearly not been honoured by the management of the Club.
Most of the serious contenders for promotion has strengthened their squads in the window (or since); at Reading we got the traditional spin that the tea was good enough. Well it isn't and the need for new players is clearly evident from recent home performances.

So who do you blame:
Is it Sir John for inaccurately assessing that STI / the Zingaravic family were worthy suitors for the Club - selling them a controlling interest which means that it is technically no longer his club an he is now powerless to ensure that it gets the finances it needs to progress.
or
Is It live-long fan Anton who presumably over-extended himself and /or didn't realise that he could not afford the Club or assumed that he was buying a long-term Premiership team and Is not that bothered about an average Championship outfit.

I assume that most will forgive SJM because of the previous decades of support and that fairly soon the initials AZ will be etched into the same chapter of RFC villains as the likes of Maxwell, Burns and Bullivant

We are clearly on the way down so who do you blame?

[southbank1871]

[Norfolk Royal]

Choosing the owner of a club is like a box of chocolates. You never really know what you're going to get.

[Royal Monk]

Who's to blame for the decline on these forums .... Forest Gump ?

[Ian Royal]

I'm inclined to blame you.

[Man Friday]

... for the spectacular decline of our club.
Tipped by many bookmakers as one of the favourites to get promotion this season Reading will no fail even to secure a playoff place.
Normally it would be the manager to get most of the blame but, while some of NA's selections have appeared to be less than logical I think it would
be unfair to blame a manager who was brought in on the basis of various undertakings that have clearly not been honoured by the management of the Club.
Most of the serious contenders for promotion has strengthened their squads in the window (or since); at Reading we got the traditional spin that the tea was good enough. Well it isn't and the need for new players is clearly evident from recent home performances.

So who do you blame:
Is it Sir John for inaccurately assessing that STI / the Zingaravic family were worthy suitors for the Club - selling them a controlling interest which means that it is technically no longer his club an he is now powerless to ensure that it gets the finances it needs to progress.
or
Is It live-long fan Anton who presumably over-extended himself and /or didn't realise that he could not afford the Club or assumed that he was buying a long-term Premiership team and Is not that bothered about an average Championship outfit.

I assume that most will forgive SJM because of the previous decades of support and that fairly soon the initials AZ will be etched into the same chapter of RFC villains as the likes of Maxwell, Burns and Bullivant

We are clearly on the way down so who do you blame?

Live long and prosper.

He didn't buy us when we were in, or heading for, the Premier League (we were mid-table Championship) so he couldn't have "assumed that he was buying a long-term Premiership team".

Basically Zingy hasn't got the dough himself and his dad, although spoiling his son at first, must have thought I ain't earned all this money just to blow it on a stupid football team with overpaid wallies so pulled the plug pretty sharpish. Simples.

[Ouroboros]

... for the spectacular decline of our club.

rofl

[RoyalBlue]

Of course it is well known that I have never been the greatest fan of our self-publicist egotistical chairman!

That having been said and to answer the question. They are both to blame equally. Of course, Anton and TSI have f*cked us around big time. However, in recent years, Madejski has been nowhere near as much saint and saviour as his fan club would have us believe and, in his desperation to offload the club, screwed up big time.

I'm still struggling to understand how an experience businessman and his advisory team can allow a situation to arise where Anton and TSI could fail to see the deal through without any real sanction at all. The 'Madejski has the right to buy the club back for £1' was clearly a fairy tale but there should have been some form of provision in place to prevent Anton being able to default in the way he did and still hold onto the majority shareholding. Perhaps Madejski and his team wanted that and Anton and TSI refused? In which case, rather than caveat emptor it should have been caveat venditor!

[peterroyal76]

It's clearly TSI's fault.

[SPARTA]

... for the spectacular decline of our club.

Where were you in the 80's and 90's? You're a spoilt little brat!

[FridaysGhost]

Madejski has made a few cock-ups as Owner of RFC. The Scottish invasion in the early days, not funding the playing side enough when he could have done and selling to Anton. On the plus side, the things he has done far, far outweigh the negatives. A new stadium, a team that occilates between the Prem and Championship rather than lurks in the lower divisions and an obvious wish to sell on to a person or Company who will take the club further.

Zingaravic came to the Club walking the walk and talking the talk! Initially, he looked like one of SJM's good stewardship decisions but, unfortunately, he conned all of us.

We are in limbo now as Anton holds the decision-making process regardless of what SJM does. Also, SJM cannot really put money in, even if he wanted to, without the agreement of the Majority partners. Who knows what they are saying - if they answer him at all!

We all need to hope!

[Nameless]

Madejski clearly has control of the club. If Anton is not attending board meetings then his vote will go down as an abstention and SJM will have the effective controlling voice. The club hasn't stopped functioning just becasue Anton has disappeared, and there is no evidence that Anton is actively blocking SJM from doing anything.

In terms of 'blame' I think the question is way too simplistic. I don't see any evidence of a con (if there has been one it's been a bizarre one that involved the con artist handing over money then walking away with nothing !). To me it looks like circumstances changed mid deal, with Boris throwing things into turmoil by taking his cash away. For me he's the villain of the piece, Anton and SJM have egg on their faces but the situation was one that neither foresaw (although that's not an excuse, planning for the unexpected and mitigating the impact is a key business skill).

I had to laugh at the 'spectacular decline' idea. We've been up and back down pretty much to where we started in the last couple of years. The next few months will see what happens next and things may be tough for a while if we don't get a buyer. However as I've said before the prospect of us building a team full of our home grown players is a fascinating one and personally I'd take a couple of years where we don;t make the play offs as a price to pay for making that transition. I do realise that plenty of people might consider that 'lacking ambition', which is one of the nonsense phrases that has crept into the game in recent years.

[madstadblues]

NOB Hob

[GreaterTorontoRoyal]

No wonder we're in a bad spot. We sold the club to Anton Zingarevich not some "Zingaravic" who is probably from the Balkans. We should stop calling the Balkans and look to Russia.

[Silver Fox]

... for the spectacular decline of our club.

I stopped reading after this, can anyone confirm if it somehow managed to get worse?

[brighton_royal]

... for the spectacular decline of our club.

I stopped reading after this, can anyone confirm if it somehow managed to get worse?

Certainly didn't get any better. About the same.

[MeMeMe]

It's not rocket science.... if i'm working for company that becomes a bit 'unstable' and I lose faith in the business model, in my view, I will look to move away. But that's easier said than done so I have to continue in my job working for a company I do not really want to work for until I find a new one, this inevitably leads to slightly below par performance and disinterest. Same thing a number of our players are starting to display right now !.

So who's to blame.... the people responsible for the running, ambition and stability of the club,

[glass half full]

It's not rocket science.... if i'm working for company that becomes a bit 'unstable' and I lose faith in the business model, in my view, I will look to move away. But that's easier said than done so I have to continue in my job working for a company I do not really want to work for until I find a new one, this inevitably leads to slightly below par performance and disinterest. Same thing a number of our players are starting to display right now !.

So who's to blame.... the people responsible for the running, ambition and stability of the club,

The players should take a long, hard look at themselves. Financial and 'political' matters should be well divorced from the pitch. Even players in some lower league teams who wonder where their next pay cheque is coming from can be professional enough to keep playing to the best of their energy.

[Forest Gump]

Firstly I apologise for the rather random results of trying to enter this post while using a knackered laptop keyboard and a spell checker running wild.

However, I do not apologise for asking where the finger should be pointed in a situation where someone at the top has reneged on his commitments and caused a scenario that, quite frankly, the FA or Football League should surely be looking into.

Btw I am a bit old to be labelled as a brat and I do remember many games from the 70's and 80's. The thing is that many other clubs of a similar level have moved onward and upward since then. I appreciate that the Reading way is to tick along and keep our hands in our pockets while bigger investors gamble with higher stakes. Good luck to those who give it a go I say.

[Lower West]

Portsmouth 19th in Division 2 that's the reality of football.

Yesterdays attendance 13,387.

Those are real football fans not the whingers that seem to have attached themselves like limpets in rent years.

Man Utds decline is good for football in my view. Shows that even money can't buy a good team.