Financial Fair Play

[Sanguine]

McCleary has to be the most frustrating player to watch these days. If he was 10 years younger you’d think you’ve got a decent talent on your hands and he’s quite exciting, just lacks the end product but that will come.

Fact is we’ve seen him at his peak and he’s a shell of that. He does 90% of the stuff still quite well but as soon as he’s in a dangerous area is just oxf*rd hopeless. Not really sure I’d want him as a squad player tbh i think I’d rather some of the younger guys get an opportunity.

Completely agreed. He's up there with Rougier* as the most frustrating players I've watched in a Reading shirt. All the skill (and in McCleary's case, the speed too) in the world, but for some reason reluctant to use it, or unable to compute how to.

If I had a quid for every time I'd implored McCleary to 'run at him!' I'd have, well, at least £300 I imagine.

*Every now and then, Rougier was Pele and Maradona, rolled into one. He'd get the step-overs going, three or four, drop a shoulder, dink the ball through or around a players' outstretched legs, and he was gone. This happened maybe twice a season.

[Snowflake Royal]

Yep my concern is that payroll should be hyper organised so it's Not the money itself but the organisation that may indicate a wider shambles I'd worry about

[John Smith]

McCleary has to be the most frustrating player to watch these days. If he was 10 years younger you’d think you’ve got a decent talent on your hands and he’s quite exciting, just lacks the end product but that will come.

Fact is we’ve seen him at his peak and he’s a shell of that. He does 90% of the stuff still quite well but as soon as he’s in a dangerous area is just oxf*rd hopeless. Not really sure I’d want him as a squad player tbh i think I’d rather some of the younger guys get an opportunity.

Completely agreed. He's up there with Rougier* as the most frustrating players I've watched in a Reading shirt. All the skill (and in McCleary's case, the speed too) in the world, but for some reason reluctant to use it, or unable to compute how to.

If I had a quid for every time I'd implored McCleary to 'run at him!' I'd have, well, at least £300 I imagine.

*Every now and then, Rougier was Pele and Maradona, rolled into one. He'd get the step-overs going, three or four, drop a shoulder, dink the ball through or around a players' outstretched legs, and he was gone. This happened maybe twice a season.

He got that assist at Norwich. I think that alone has paid for his wages this season. I have always liked him though.

[Royalwaster]

McCleary has to be the most frustrating player to watch these days. If he was 10 years younger you’d think you’ve got a decent talent on your hands and he’s quite exciting, just lacks the end product but that will come.

Fact is we’ve seen him at his peak and he’s a shell of that. He does 90% of the stuff still quite well but as soon as he’s in a dangerous area is just oxf*rd hopeless. Not really sure I’d want him as a squad player tbh i think I’d rather some of the younger guys get an opportunity.

Completely agreed. He's up there with Rougier* as the most frustrating players I've watched in a Reading shirt. All the skill (and in McCleary's case, the speed too) in the world, but for some reason reluctant to use it, or unable to compute how to.

If I had a quid for every time I'd implored McCleary to 'run at him!' I'd have, well, at least £300 I imagine.

*Every now and then, Rougier was Pele and Maradona, rolled into one. He'd get the step-overs going, three or four, drop a shoulder, dink the ball through or around a players' outstretched legs, and he was gone. This happened maybe twice a season.

A bit like Jimmy Kebe before BMc ...

[Tilehurstsouthbank]

Reading blame administrative glitch due to Bank Holiday in Hong Kong and promise wages will be paid within 24 hours

Good bit of scaremongering right there. Total non-story.

Yeah because the club would come out and say they have no money, wouldn't they.....

The owners have money

They just spend a wedge on the new training ground. If this is anything more than a non-story, I will be astounded.

Apparently down to a BH in Hong Kong. Staff will receive the rest of their owed monies, just a day late. Non story.

[Hendo]

All you have to do is take a look at the players social media accounts, I don't think they are particularly worried.

[Sutekh]

Don’t get this late payment of players/staff at any club. Don’t businesses have payroll and HR staff that process the wages to be paid to employees each month a week or so before payment so when the actual day comes the systems just automatically run the relevant job?

Or in this day and age does everyone still hang on someone’s mum to be in an office somewhere to press a start button?

[Elm Park Kid]

Don’t get this late payment of players/staff at any club. Don’t businesses have payroll and HR staff that process the wages to be paid to employees each month a week or so before payment so when the actual day comes the systems just automatically run the relevant job?

Or in this day and age does everyone still hang on someone’s mum to be in an office somewhere to press a start button?

They will have sent instructions to their UK bank to make the transfers - but then the bank would have stopped them once insufficient funds were in the account to process them.

[Old Man Andrews]

Don’t get this late payment of players/staff at any club. Don’t businesses have payroll and HR staff that process the wages to be paid to employees each month a week or so before payment so when the actual day comes the systems just automatically run the relevant job?

Or in this day and age does everyone still hang on someone’s mum to be in an office somewhere to press a start button?

They will have sent instructions to their UK bank to make the transfers - but then the bank would have stopped them once insufficient funds were in the account to process them.

Let's hope the bank charges don't reflect the amount of money they were trying to pay out then.

[Nameless]

Don’t get this late payment of players/staff at any club. Don’t businesses have payroll and HR staff that process the wages to be paid to employees each month a week or so before payment so when the actual day comes the systems just automatically run the relevant job?

Or in this day and age does everyone still hang on someone’s mum to be in an office somewhere to press a start button?

They will have sent instructions to their UK bank to make the transfers - but then the bank would have stopped them once insufficient funds were in the account to process them.

Let's hope the bank charges don't reflect the amount of money they were trying to pay out then.

Suspect billionaires aren’t expected to pay trivial things like bank charges !
Might be more of an issue for staff and players with mortgages set up to be paid in line with money coming in.....

[Zip]

The players have now been paid in full. This was a non story. Surprised some on here were getting concerned.

[muirinho]

They will have sent instructions to their UK bank to make the transfers - but then the bank would have stopped them once insufficient funds were in the account to process them.

Let's hope the bank charges don't reflect the amount of money they were trying to pay out then.

Suspect billionaires aren’t expected to pay trivial things like bank charges !
Might be more of an issue for staff and players with mortgages set up to be paid in line with money coming in.....

The company I worked for messed up our salary payments once (switch to a new system which broke). We could claim back any expenses clearly caused by late payment of salary (i.e., failed DD charges, overdraft charges etc).

This kind of thing happens.

[Hound]

Does anyone set up their DD for the day they get paid? If it had been a week, a month etc then it would have been very concerning for all.

But it wasn’t, and there was an explanation. It’s a complete non-story.

[Brain Traysers]

Probably a bit too tinfoil hat, but I wonder if the increasingly tight capital controls by the Chinese authorities (essentially making it more and more difficult to get money out of China) will have an impact on the number of of Chinese owned football clubs (2 in PL, 4 in championship). Aside from the controls, last year Beijing described the wave on investment into European football as "Irrational", hinting at increased stringency (slightly old news). I certainly wouldn't be surprised if we saw more of these issues in the future - both "one-off" payment glitches, and Chinese owners selling up.

If that does cause problems in the future it's somewhat ironic given a lot of the investments were made before the capital controls ramped up so Chinese billionaires could diversify wealth in foreign assets (see also housing markets in pretty much every major city).

[muirinho]

Probably a bit too tinfoil hat, but I wonder if the increasingly tight capital controls by the Chinese authorities (essentially making it more and more difficult to get money out of China) will have an impact on the number of of Chinese owned football clubs (2 in PL, 4 in championship). Aside from the controls, last year Beijing described the wave on investment into European football as "Irrational", hinting at increased stringency (slightly old news). I certainly wouldn't be surprised if we saw more of these issues in the future - both "one-off" payment glitches, and Chinese owners selling up.

If that does cause problems in the future it's somewhat ironic given a lot of the investments were made before the capital controls ramped up so Chinese billionaires could diversify wealth in foreign assets (see also housing markets in pretty much every major city).

You could be right about Chinese owners selling up - but I don't think this particular glitch had anything to do with capital controls or anything like that. IMO, this was cock-up not conspiracy. For instance, loads of peoples salaries delayed in Ireland, because European banks were shut yesterday.
https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/eur ... 21539.html

What wouldn't surprise me though, is the Dais investing money in the REP thing - they're probably going to want to trickle money overseas gradually, and if they are being prevented from putting it directly into the club because of FFP, they are going to look elsewhere.

Judging by the amount invested in Bearwood, there's no shortage of cash. Logistics and politics though, are other issues.

[paddy20]

With the running 3 year accounts rule I presume we are eagerly awaiting the next set of accounts for Y/E June 19 which will be published around March 2020. With a profit of 4.7m followed by a loss of 21m we are allowed to lose about £23m I think? If we are now anticipating a similar loss for Y/E 19 to the previous year (say £20m) this will mean we will have to make a profit this season??

With a turnover of £18m and wages at £35m for last set of accounts how on earth will we make a profit?
If this is correct I can't see us signing any players and only selling our best ones.

Am I way out on these figures or is next season one of trying to delay the inevitable loss of 9pts or relegation from depending on a team of academy players?

[Hendo]

I am sure I have seen a place to discuss club finances on this portal somewhere, but I guess not as a new thread has been started.

[Old Man Andrews]

Yep well worth a new thread despite there already being two dedicated threads to the financial issues......

[Maneki Neko]

theres a thread in club policies


in short no, and as detailed in the CEO statement, we are still very much up against it and will need to offload most of our ex prem players, those signed on daft stam/clement/gourlay wages, especially those that don't ply much, and also get decent some fees in (swift?). very much looks like we will be heavily into the loan market again,supplementing our squad with academy grads, and whilst hoping to be able keep some of our best existing players to ensure we are still competetive

[Hound]

yes, been chatted about at length elsewhere.

Still I get the point that the accounts from this year are going to be very interesting. We did sell Bacuna and Ilori for £6m-ish, so that will help

It certainly points to us maybe needing to sell Swift/Barrow/Moore if we can't shift out enough of the deadwood. I like Swift but do think he is the most replaceable of those. I'd be surprised if we make more than 1 or 2 perm signings, one of which may well be Nelson.

And then if we do stay up and make a profit as suggested, we should actually be in a decent position to invest (sensibly) the season after, as we could presumably lose another 20m that season, and the season after if we so wanted to