Confimred new owners of Raeding Footbal Club

[WoodleyRoyal]

60 mill is loads if you have no way of making money from it! SJM doesn't want anyone to come in and run the club as a business - businesses make money and Reading FC certainly doesn't! if someone where to come in a run it as a business then the first thing they would do is to make it profitable i.e asset stripping whether that be players or buildings/land. What SJM wants is someone who will bankroll the club as a hobby - and them sort of people are very few and far between.

[Cape Town Royal]

60 mill is loads if you have no way of making money from it! SJM doesn't want anyone to come in and run the club as a business - businesses make money and Reading FC certainly doesn't! if someone where to come in a run it as a business then the first thing they would do is to make it profitable i.e asset stripping whether that be players or buildings/land. What SJM wants is someone who will bankroll the club as a hobby - and them sort of people are very few and far between.

It does make you think about how lucky we have been over the last 20 years to have Madjeski.. yes there have been promises of transfer funds and all that, but look at where we were and what we have enjoyed under his stewardship and its been eventful, but mostly good... Imagine if when AZ took over SJM had walked away and left us totally under AZ's control what a mess we could have been in.... Portsmouth, Leeds, Hearts et al... There is a long list of clubs that have gone wrong...

I was talking to a Leicester fan today who said they used to look at Reading and really envy the way we were run as a club and saw us as a role model for similar sized Championship / borderline Premier League clubs and I agree, until the right investor can be found, then if SJM wants to find the right owner then take your time get it right... Hopefully he's learn't his lesson from the AZ experience and is vetting a little more closely the long term ambitions of potential new owners..

As for the playing side, this season has been frustrating, a lack of consistency mixed with injuries has made us under achieve, but I think the more important thing for Reading at the moment is making sure the ownership of the club is stable.. Yes promotion would be good but with the ownership thing not resolved, can you imagine the mess we would be in should we win promotion this year - then do what we always do; under invest - but any investment would mean a yet higher wage bill - so if we were then relegated, which lets be honest, this squad would need major overhaul to compete, the additional wage bill could cripple us....

My view is SJM take your time and get it right, find the right buyer who has a clear long term vision and in the meantime, with the young players coming through showing promise, if we have to let a few go then so be it, lets have a season where we try and mould a team to play a style of football they all can play and that will take us forward..

Obviously promotion would probably scupper this plan because we would sell to some Chinese triad who has made a fortune from hacking the fins off sharks and end up with a team full of overpaid Vietnamese superstars all with very good nails!!

[Stevie G]

Is it just me that doesn't buy the bleating hype about you don't own a football club to make money. Sure there are other ways of making money, that don't carry the kudos, but come on, a top businessman, foreign investors with no link or loyalty to a club, take a club on just to lose money. I'm no businessman, but I do listen to Sir Alan Suagr! They may show that they turn very litle profit, but there must be other business benefits that must make it attractive.

[Cape Town Royal]

Is it just me that doesn't buy the bleating hype about you don't own a football club to make money. Sure there are other ways of making money, that don't carry the kudos, but come on, a top businessman, foreign investors with no link or loyalty to a club, take a club on just to lose money. I'm no businessman, but I do listen to Sir Alan Suagr! They may show that they turn very litle profit, but there must be other business benefits that must make it attractive.

I am sure there are - but taking clients for a corporate night out at Bournemouth on Tuesday was not one of them!!

[Ian Royal]

Is it just me that doesn't buy the bleating hype about you don't own a football club to make money. Sure there are other ways of making money, that don't carry the kudos, but come on, a top businessman, foreign investors with no link or loyalty to a club, take a club on just to lose money. I'm no businessman, but I do listen to Sir Alan Suagr! They may show that they turn very litle profit, but there must be other business benefits that must make it attractive.

Yeah it's called money laundering, ego massaging, profile building, or a quick promotion and sale for a profit. Or any combination.

[blueroyals]

Is it just me that doesn't buy the bleating hype about you don't own a football club to make money. Sure there are other ways of making money, that don't carry the kudos, but come on, a top businessman, foreign investors with no link or loyalty to a club, take a club on just to lose money. I'm no businessman, but I do listen to Sir Alan Suagr! They may show that they turn very litle profit, but there must be other business benefits that must make it attractive.

Are you suggesting that a man such as Alan Sugar wouldn't buy a football club?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sugar#Tottenham_Hotspur

['lista]

Isn't this all a bit academic if, despite numerous visits no-one has shown the slightest interest in buying.

a visit by prospective buyers is a sign of some interest

Until they're invited to fly up Sir John Madjeski's anus.

['lista]

In their anus flying machine.

[Stevie G]

Is it just me that doesn't buy the bleating hype about you don't own a football club to make money. Sure there are other ways of making money, that don't carry the kudos, but come on, a top businessman, foreign investors with no link or loyalty to a club, take a club on just to lose money. I'm no businessman, but I do listen to Sir Alan Suagr! They may show that they turn very litle profit, but there must be other business benefits that must make it attractive.

Are you suggesting that a man such as Alan Sugar wouldn't buy a football club?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sugar#Tottenham_Hotspur

Absolutely not, in fact that adds to my point, a good businessman could buy a club and make money, if you forgive him for Amstrad.

[multisync1830]

Is it just me that doesn't buy the bleating hype about you don't own a football club to make money. Sure there are other ways of making money, that don't carry the kudos, but come on, a top businessman, foreign investors with no link or loyalty to a club, take a club on just to lose money. I'm no businessman, but I do listen to Sir Alan Suagr! They may show that they turn very litle profit, but there must be other business benefits that must make it attractive.

I guess your line "I'm no businessman" is sufficient to mean you don't understand what profit and loss is all about. Whilst the easy option is to blame the big clubs (Chelsea is the first on everybody's list) it's Sky who made the modern game and by default ruined the game by putting in ridiculous large amounts of 'free money' . Up till then clubs were run on a proper business model. Sky changed all that.

Clubs are now basically charities which rely on donations to enable them to survive. Like formula 1, modern football has gone from being reliant on it's fans to reliant on it's sponsors. That shift and the vast difference between the two, freed up wage negotiation's to extreme levels whereby a player can 'earn' 300k a week. By no means can any one player provide sufficient turnover to generate that income to justify it. Therefore paying that level of remuneration means the economics are distorted beyond reason.

Whilst this free money is being poured in most clubs will keep going just. Mostly by either a rich benefactor who uses the club as was suggested or by deferring debt further and further back.

[Stevie G]

Managed an annual budget of over a million, but my point is, it's not my money so i don't claim to have the business acumen to create such wealth. However you still seem to have come to the same conclusion, clubs do create profits, the worst profits though seem to come at the expense of growing debt.

[JakeTheRoyal]

164 pages of posts says it all about this ox**** takeover really

[multisync1830]

Managed an annual budget of over a million, but my point is, it's not my money so i don't claim to have the business acumen to create such wealth. However you still seem to have come to the same conclusion, clubs do create profits, the worst profits though seem to come at the expense of growing debt.

At what point does the club(s) make a profit? They all rely on handouts.

[Royal Rother]

But like you said, the chances of promotion are small, so the chances of the value increasing more than they are now are likewise small. So they are probably at the highest value they are most likely to be, so it would be logical to sell now.

It's not complicated, eh-face.

You originally said it would be an odd gamble to take, I've explained why it's not.

Again, if he was going to lose his stake if he lost the bet it would be a different thing. But he will still own the shares.

Agreed, it's not particularly complicated.

[Sutekh]

Any sign of this saga ever ending yet?

[multisync1830]

Any sign of this saga ever ending yet?

nope

[melonhead]

164 pages of posts says it all about this ox**** takeover really

Well yes. Thats kind of what threads are innit

[tidus_mi2]

Maybe any potential buyers are waiting for this topic to reach 200 pages before they complete their takeover?

[RoyalBlue]

60 mill is loads if you have no way of making money from it! SJM doesn't want anyone to come in and run the club as a business - businesses make money and Reading FC certainly doesn't! if someone where to come in a run it as a business then the first thing they would do is to make it profitable i.e asset stripping whether that be players or buildings/land. What SJM wants is someone who will bankroll the club as a hobby - and them sort of people are very few and far between.

It does make you think about how lucky we have been over the last 20 years to have Madjeski.. yes there have been promises of transfer funds and all that, but look at where we were and what we have enjoyed under his stewardship and its been eventful, but mostly good... Imagine if when AZ took over SJM had walked away and left us totally under AZ's control what a mess we could have been in.... Portsmouth, Leeds, Hearts et al... There is a long list of clubs that have gone wrong...

I was talking to a Leicester fan today who said they used to look at Reading and really envy the way we were run as a club and saw us as a role model for similar sized Championship / borderline Premier League clubs and I agree, until the right investor can be found, then if SJM wants to find the right owner then take your time get it right...

I very much doubt that the Leicester fan will be admiring the Madejski/Reading model if Leicester adopt it now that they are in the PL!

[Ian Royal]

Ask them in 5 years to see how they've gone about it and whether they're In massive debt and trouble.