CONFRIMED: Latest rumours Confrimed as Unconfrimed

[Greatwesternline]

If one of the parties is in legal debt to the FL then I would presume they should have some recourse if a said party then makes money out of what is the sale of a club asset. And isn't Bearwood owned by the club still, not in some private holding company like the ground (which will no doubt be sold next month).

That's not how life works. If i owe you money, but i sell my car to someone else, you don't have a right to my money from the car sale.

Also Dai doesnt "owe" money to the EFL. They've fined him. But that isnt a legal debt. It's a penalty, which has no legal status.

Penalty clauses aren't enforceable. The EFL isn't a statutory body, its fines have no basis in law. It's just a punishment for being in breach of a competition rule.

Rather makes the whole ffp thing utterly ****** pointless then if all the FL can do is take points away rather than actually hurt the planks that cause it all in the first place.

Wonder how much the PL lobbyists will manage to get the useless politicians to water down any proposed financial regulator by?

Indeed. fines rely on people wanting to carry on being involved in football. If you dont care about being involved in football in England anymore, fines from the EFL mean absolutely nothing to you.

Same as if you don't want to be a member of a golf club anymore, and you get barred for not paying your membership fees, being barred from the clubhouse probably doesnt matter to you.

[St Pauli]

That's not how life works. If i owe you money, but i sell my car to someone else, you don't have a right to my money from the car sale.

Also Dai doesnt "owe" money to the EFL. They've fined him. But that isnt a legal debt. It's a penalty, which has no legal status.

Penalty clauses aren't enforceable. The EFL isn't a statutory body, its fines have no basis in law. It's just a punishment for being in breach of a competition rule.

Rather makes the whole ffp thing utterly ****** pointless then if all the FL can do is take points away rather than actually hurt the planks that cause it all in the first place.

Wonder how much the PL lobbyists will manage to get the useless politicians to water down any proposed financial regulator by?

Indeed. fines rely on people wanting to carry on being involved in football. If you dont care about being involved in football in England anymore, fines from the EFL mean absolutely nothing to you.

Same as if you don't want to be a member of a golf club anymore, and you get barred for not paying your membership fees, being barred from the clubhouse probably doesnt matter to you.

Indeed.

I got my FC St Pauli membership revoked after years of non payment of membership fees (they were being charged from an empty bank account).

Given I don’t need membership for early ticket access anymore it’s irrelevant to me.

[Green]

Rather makes the whole ffp thing utterly ****** pointless then if all the FL can do is take points away rather than actually hurt the planks that cause it all in the first place.

Wonder how much the PL lobbyists will manage to get the useless politicians to water down any proposed financial regulator by?

Indeed. fines rely on people wanting to carry on being involved in football. If you dont care about being involved in football in England anymore, fines from the EFL mean absolutely nothing to you.

Same as if you don't want to be a member of a golf club anymore, and you get barred for not paying your membership fees, being barred from the clubhouse probably doesnt matter to you.

Indeed.

I got my FC St Pauli membership revoked after years of non payment of membership fees (they were being charged from an empty bank account).

Given I don’t need membership for early ticket access anymore it’s irrelevant to me.

I guess some people link the brinkmanship but to me it smacks of poor admin, something a quick email or phone call could've sorted.

[under the tin]

I get we're taking value out of the club, but does that make a sale harder? In the summer, we basically had operations of a top end Championship club in L1. You'd need to convince an owner to pay a high purchase price and underwrite large losses in the hope of promotion.

Now we are a L1 in size and name, presumably with a low price to match. A deal just became in reach for a lot more parties. And they won't be asset strippers as there's none left to strip.

Take your point, but still a lot of risk involved though. No training facilities, potentially no stadium, (Dai could still hold on to that and charge rent), an academy that only has the players nobody else wants and a club still very much on the EFL's radar.

Certainly admire your optimism, let's hope there's still some interested parties.

I fear the academy comes next. Our youngsters will be looking for another club or giving up on their career. We're so important for young footballers in the area, after us you're looking at London clubs or Southampton where competition is fierce. But we can't maintain it with a shit, temporary training ground.

Absolutely, YR. Then we'll see the ripple effect going through the whole club.
Perhaps the deal for Bearwood includes WWFC taking over the buildings, land, academy students,coaching staff, the whole shebang.
It becomes the WWFC academy.
Otherwise, no RFc Cat 1 means letting all the kids, staff, go as well, and undoubtedly some academy related staff at the SCL end.
In either scenario, I can foresee Bowen and half the football heirarchy no longer being RFC employees, either of their own volition, or redundancy.

[St Pauli]

Indeed. fines rely on people wanting to carry on being involved in football. If you dont care about being involved in football in England anymore, fines from the EFL mean absolutely nothing to you.

Same as if you don't want to be a member of a golf club anymore, and you get barred for not paying your membership fees, being barred from the clubhouse probably doesnt matter to you.

Indeed.

I got my FC St Pauli membership revoked after years of non payment of membership fees (they were being charged from an empty bank account).

Given I don’t need membership for early ticket access anymore it’s irrelevant to me.

I guess some people link the brinkmanship but to me it smacks of poor admin, something a quick email or phone call could've sorted.

I can see you’ve never dealt with German bureaucracy.

I’d have probably needed to visit the clubhouse in person and got signatures from two different offices which were open from 1400-1430 on the last Thursday of every month.

And I was about 23 years old at the time. My life admin was surviving the early years of a career teaching in comprehensive education, not pleasing some pen pushers in (Hamburg) City Hall.

[Armadillo Roadkill]

He paid for Bearwood. He wants his money back. How much of it will he keep, and how much of it will he throw away on a club whose supporters clearly hate him and who insult in the national media? What possible interest has he in saving the club if he can get some money back by selling its assests until its just a name and few half-decent players?

He must have calculated he can get more money back this way than selling the club, stadium and training ground as a single entity. Can't see how that will work myself, but then I'm not an egotistical maniac billionaire witht the Central Committe of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China taking a close interest in my case. Because when that happens, billionaires have a habit of unexpectedly falling off buildings or dissappearing.

[blythspartan]

That’s a lot of people overseeing the sell of the training ground today and posing for photos.

https://twitter.com/smiley_mc/status/17 ... 54/photo/1

[Silver Fox]

Bailiffs

[Hendo]

[royal67]

That’s a lot of people overseeing the sell of the training ground today and posing for photos.

https://twitter.com/smiley_mc/status/17 ... 54/photo/1

Seems to be about the car as much as it is the people. Probably an 'Executive' taxi firm marketing exercise.......

[blythspartan]

Bailiffs

Isn’t one of them Mark Bowen?

[SouthDownsRoyal]

That’s a lot of people overseeing the sell of the training ground today and posing for photos.

https://twitter.com/smiley_mc/status/17 ... 54/photo/1

Seems to be about the car as much as it is the people. Probably an 'Executive' taxi firm marketing exercise.......

Yeah, agree with this

[Stranded]

People spotting on the Land Registry that the training ground has belonged to one of Dai's companies since 2019, not the club - so yeah, we aren't seeing any money from the sale.

[The Royal Forester]

Wow! Exclusive talks agreed in what three days, when asset stripping, but cannot be agreed in six months when selling the club. I have never seen Wycombe Wanderers as a rival, but if this deal goes through I will be putting them on a par with Poxford and the Swinedon. Just hadn't thought the Chairboys would kick us when we are down. I said to some friends at the start of the season RFC will not exist by the end of it. Now with yet another buyer(s) walking away I still cannot see us starting next season.

[SouthDownsRoyal]

Wow! Exclusive talks agreed in what three days, when asset stripping, but cannot be agreed in six months when selling the club. I have never seen Wycombe Wanderers as a rival, but if this deal goes through I will be putting them on a par with Poxford and the Swinedon. Just hadn't thought the Chairboys would kick us when we are down. I said to some friends at the start of the season RFC will not exist by the end of it. Now with yet another buyer(s) walking away I still cannot see us starting next season.

Exactly funny how this has happened to swiftly but cant sell the club

[Snowflake Royal]

Do the EFL have to approve the sale? A chance to be heroes for once?

What possible right would they have to block it?

[Greatwesternline]

Wow! Exclusive talks agreed in what three days, when asset stripping, but cannot be agreed in six months when selling the club. I have never seen Wycombe Wanderers as a rival, but if this deal goes through I will be putting them on a par with Poxford and the Swinedon. Just hadn't thought the Chairboys would kick us when we are down. I said to some friends at the start of the season RFC will not exist by the end of it. Now with yet another buyer(s) walking away I still cannot see us starting next season.

Exactly funny how this has happened to swiftly but cant sell the club

It's sort of obvious though. A club comes with loads of outgoings, stadium rent, staff costs, players wages. A training ground facility doesnt come with those things. Much easier to sell because a lot less due diligence needed.

[Mr Angry]

Dai has decided that there isn't anyone who is going to pay him what he wants for the Club (including the ground and training ground) and so is selling off the assets piecemeal as part of a firesale to realise some value.

This was also what he did with players in January.

Then. the idea was to fund the club so a buyer would pay him what he wanted, but as that not going to happen, selling the training ground to raise capital (for Dai, NOT the club) was the obvious next thing to do.

Some of the money realised in the sale may go to the club, but don't bet on it; this has all the hallmarks on someone about to do a runner and cashing up what they can before they get out of Dodge.

As I said before, RFC is worth £1.

So if you can find someone willing to pay Dai for the lease of the Stadium, pay off the debts and go back to Sonning as a training ground, there might be a path to the club being sold.

If not, then for the first time in thius sorry saga, I genuinely believe that there will be no Reading FC by the start of the 2024/25 season.

Here is one idea from left field; can the Council not put a compulsory purchase order on the Stadium, and in effect, seize it as a Community Asset??

[paddy20]

Wow! Exclusive talks agreed in what three days, when asset stripping, but cannot be agreed in six months when selling the club. I have never seen Wycombe Wanderers as a rival, but if this deal goes through I will be putting them on a par with Poxford and the Swinedon. Just hadn't thought the Chairboys would kick us when we are down. I said to some friends at the start of the season RFC will not exist by the end of it. Now with yet another buyer(s) walking away I still cannot see us starting next season.

Exactly funny how this has happened to swiftly but cant sell the club

It's sort of obvious though. A club comes with loads of outgoings, stadium rent, staff costs, players wages. A training ground facility doesnt come with those things. Much easier to sell because a lot less due diligence needed.

Crikey it takes 3 months to sell a house, how could this be done quickly

[Wycombe Royal]

So now it is has been shown that the planning consent granted was personal to RFC for the purposes outlined in the planning application.

Does that mean WWFC would have to make an application for a variation to that consent before they could use it?

That could seriously delay any sale and the council would get hundreds, if not thousands, of objections.