Points Deduction Incoming!

[karbota]

This club is a joke, the owners have ruined us and before long there will be no more RFC

We should boycott the club and protest

Should never have been sold to such unfit improper foreign owners.

[Lower West]

I still don't really get what Dai gets out of owning Reading.

A training complex to sell.

Some prime property estate close to a railway station.

[Lower West]

We will be in League 2, or worse, in a few years

Unlike most league 2 clubs. We have a decent academy to fall back on and start rebuilding from. Pauno's appointment was perhaps a sign of foresight by the owners. Get promoted kick him out. Get relegated he's the man.

[fred sharpes nose]

The major downside i see with this is quite a few long years under scrutiny with continued investment restriction. The chances of success will be limited. To stay in the Championship consistently in itself will be an achievement.

We become less attractive to any buyer. We have less assests

My worry - once Dia sees there is minimal chance of Premier League (or is it personal?) glory in the short,medium and possibly long term he will decide enough is enough and walk. Write off his losses and say goodbye

And that may well do for us

[Nameless]

I still don't really get what Dai gets out of owning Reading.

A training complex to sell.

Some prime property estate close to a railway station.

What is the market like for second hand training complexes ? He’s spent a fortune developing Bearwood, you wonder how many buyers there would be for it and how much profit there would be.
The stadium site is hardly prime real estate, it’s on a rubbish tip, would be expensive to clear and he doesn’twn Most of it !

[Nameless]

I still don't really get what Dai gets out of owning Reading.

A training complex to sell.

Some prime property estate close to a railway station.

What is the market like for second hand training complexes ? He’s spent a fortune developing Bearwood, you wonder how many buyers there would be for it and how much profit there would be.
The stadium site is hardly prime real estate, it’s on a rubbish tip, would be expensive to clear and he doesn’twn Most of it !

[Hendo]

This club is a joke, the owners have ruined us and before long there will be no more RFC

We should boycott the club and protest

Should never have been sold to such unfit improper foreign owners.

Maybe someone domestic like Mel Morris would’ve been better?

[Simmops]

We will be in League 2, or worse, in a few years

Unlike most league 2 clubs. We have a decent academy to fall back on and start rebuilding from. Pauno's appointment was perhaps a sign of foresight by the owners. Get promoted kick him out. Get relegated he's the man.

An academy which will close because we won't be able to afford

[Nameless]

We will be in League 2, or worse, in a few years

Unlike most league 2 clubs. We have a decent academy to fall back on and start rebuilding from. Pauno's appointment was perhaps a sign of foresight by the owners. Get promoted kick him out. Get relegated he's the man.

An academy which will close because we won't be able to afford

No, it would just drop to a CAT 2, which is much cheaper to run.
Would have significant implications as all the best players would move to a Cat 1 club. Clubs without Cat 1 status still produce good players of course.
It would be interesting to work out the economics of the Academy. How much has it cost us to set up and run against how much it has earned us or saved us.

[Snowflake Royal]

What I'm interested to know is whether the owners have learned. Let's say we have another couple of years under soft embargoes under the EFL and then are in a position to loosen the purse strings more again. Will the money be spent wisely if we can get ourselves back in a healthier position?

3rd club in financial trouble. Persisted with overspending after sacking Gourlay for following their instructions.

Not bloody likely. Hope he oxf*rd off asap.

[Snowflake Royal]

I’m not sure we’d get multiple punishments for pretty much the same offence, but maybe wrong

Not much we could do once we were landed with Gourlays bumper 4 year contracts. Well was some stuff but we’d prob still been well over FFP

It’s prob part of the discussions isn’t it? If we can show we’re not going to do the same again then they’ll let us get on with it from here

Has anyone breached multiple years and got multiple deductions? I mean I guess it's possible but if you agree business plan and stick to it, would be very harsh.

How many have there been under FFP, relatively few I think.

In the past it often coincided with administration and buyouts, which kinda wipes the slate clean in many respects.

I would assume any business plan would require us living within our means, or maybe turning a profit to offset losses, for a while.

Remember the days of the firesale to recover finances? Doesn’t really happen anymore. No reason it shouldn’t.

This may well be a sign that we're coming out the other side... FL having forced slowly but more forcefully into complying, and then hit the deduction as we're coming out, so there doesn't have to be multiple penalties across multiple seasons. Optimistic take.

[Wycombe Royal]

We will be in League 2, or worse, in a few years

Unlike most league 2 clubs. We have a decent academy to fall back on and start rebuilding from. Pauno's appointment was perhaps a sign of foresight by the owners. Get promoted kick him out. Get relegated he's the man.

An academy which will close because we won't be able to afford

Why won't we be able to afford it?

[Linden Jones' Tash]

Isn't the bigger issue the unsustainable nature of the Championship.

The only reason for a wealthy owner to consistently pump their money into a club in the Championship is to get to the Premier League, and then the only way to do that is to try and get the best players and coaches.
And in the current context, they cost more money than is sustainable.
If our wage bill was 50% of our effective revenue, we wouldn't be able to compete at this level and there would be complaints from the fans..

"Spending money wisely" is also a hindsight issue...
Footballers aren't a guaranteed investment at the Championship level...

We need to suck it up and hope we can survive this season and then see what lies ahead....
Just enjoy things one game at a time as they say..

[Snowflake Royal]

Unlike most league 2 clubs. We have a decent academy to fall back on and start rebuilding from. Pauno's appointment was perhaps a sign of foresight by the owners. Get promoted kick him out. Get relegated he's the man.

An academy which will close because we won't be able to afford

Why won't we be able to afford it?

Because it costs a million or so a year and if we get relegated to League Two, our income will be a few million.

Why do you think L2 teams don’t have academies for the most part.

[kirkrich]

Happy 150th birthday!

[Sanguine]

Yes the parachute money is poisonous, making the PL a closed shop of 26 clubs including the yo-yo clubs.

There's a recency bias to this argument that is exacerbated by the current examples of Norwich and Fulham. You only have to go back three full seasons, to the start of 2018-19, to get to 26 clubs having played in the Premier League. Go back a further two seasons and you add five more, 31 different teams involved since the start of 2016-17. Two more seasons and you can add a 32nd.

In essence half of the Championship have played in the Premier League in the last five years.

Of course parachute payments are helpful - but they are a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Without them, promotion to the Premier League would bankrupt subsequently relegated clubs.

[Winston Biscuit]

points are overrated

[andrew1957]

Isn't the bigger issue the unsustainable nature of the Championship.

The only reason for a wealthy owner to consistently pump their money into a club in the Championship is to get to the Premier League, and then the only way to do that is to try and get the best players and coaches.
And in the current context, they cost more money than is sustainable.
If our wage bill was 50% of our effective revenue, we wouldn't be able to compete at this level and there would be complaints from the fans..

"Spending money wisely" is also a hindsight issue...
Footballers aren't a guaranteed investment at the Championship level...

We need to suck it up and hope we can survive this season and then see what lies ahead....
Just enjoy things one game at a time as they say..

You are right. If the owners had instead not bought any players and said they were running a sustainable club with no debt then many on here would have howled that they had no ambition - especially if running the club sustainably had meant a relegation to League 1.

The real problem is with the Premier League. If say 50% of the PL revenues was distributed down the pyramid football could be great again but as it is the rich just get ever richer and the poor are left fighting for scraps. The first attempt at a super League might have failed but in the end it will happen by default with a closed shop at the top.

And FPP is actually helping the big clubs as it prevents new entrants from gambling for success and joining the elite. It is in the big club’s interests to effectively keep any competition out. Sadly football as we knew it is dead. The gaps between each league level will just keep growing and a club like Reading that gambles for the dream and fails could easily find ourselves much lower down the pyramid for the long term once the dust settles.

[Simmops]

An academy which will close because we won't be able to afford

Why won't we be able to afford it?

Because it costs a million or so a year and if we get relegated to League Two, our income will be a few million.

Why do you think L2 teams don’t have academies for the most part.

The only lower league side i can't think of who has had a decent academy ever is crewe..... and you know the shit that they had there

[From Despair To Where?]

The academy is one thing that is not counted towards FFP. No reason why the owner can't keep ploughing money into that to maintain Cat 1 if he wants to.

From an ethical perspective, if the EFL is remotely serious about sustainability, its the one thing they should be encouraging clubs to invest in.