CONFRIMED: Latest rumours Confrimed as Unconfrimed

[windermereROYAL]

So after Blackpool we bid farewell the the people sitting nearby in my case mostly the same for 20 years, I can call them friends even though we only meet at football. It could get emotional with no cast iron guarantee we`ll meet again in August.
I think we should all stick around for the lap of appreciation, the players will be in the same boat as us, have they all kicked their last football for Reading football club?
While it`s possible, or even likely somebody will have exclusivity by then it`s by no means certain it will get over the line.
3 games to go, back the boys because what will be will be.

[Brogue]

[RFCMod]

You almost immediately expect a picture of Uri Gellar to be accompanying this front page

[Snowflake Royal]

So losing half of your income wouldn't leave you feeling a bit stressed GWL? Keeping in mind that the 28 year old footballer probably has 4 or 5 years left of earning well before their career ends. I doubt many lower league players waltz into lucrative salaries after they retire just as the rest of us are hitting our prime earning years. Dropping £100K a year now is going to hit that pension pot massively.

It would stress me a bit, but some people on here are saying its worse for footballers than a nurse working in the NHS, which is patent nonsense.

Furthermore, the career of a footballer sets them nicely up for coaching roles in football, punditry, being an agent, working behind the scenes in a former club.

Being a professional footballer sets you up for a life of relatively interesting work at above average levels of salary. No one should lose too much sleep over a top 3 tier footballer losing 3 months pay.

Has anyone literally said the bit in bold? - may have missed it but that is naturally nonsense. But looking at the players we have on our books at the moment, if the club does go pop they will fit in to a number of categories.

There will be those who would likely get picked up on similar or only a little less pay - Wing, Knibbs, Azeez, Smith, Bindon all fit into that group.

There will be others who may struggle to pick up another deal or would need to take a massive pay drop - looking at the likes of Dean, possibly even Yiadom given he is over 30.

Then you have a lot of the younger players who really may struggle to fnd another deal or need to drop out of the pro game altogether - so Wellens, Wareham, Carson, Abrefa, Rushesha.

So yes, someone earning 35k per year will have more worries but the security of the job will naturally have taken a toll.

Snowball.

It basically comes back to my original response to Mr Angry, which was meant to be that we shouldn't consider the players as any more affected or deserving of sympathy than any number of other people in normal walks of life.

Not that we shouldn't have any sympathy or they should just suck it up, but that playing the woe is them card and they're some sort of heroes for dealing is excessive.

Especially from people who tend to not be sympathetic to people in normal walks of life who struggle. We all know there are some here whose reaction to a nurse using a foodbank is that they should just cancel sky and manage their money better.

It's then spiralled out of control.

[Hound]

It would stress me a bit, but some people on here are saying its worse for footballers than a nurse working in the NHS, which is patent nonsense.

Furthermore, the career of a footballer sets them nicely up for coaching roles in football, punditry, being an agent, working behind the scenes in a former club.

Being a professional footballer sets you up for a life of relatively interesting work at above average levels of salary. No one should lose too much sleep over a top 3 tier footballer losing 3 months pay.

The list of post-career jobs you quote is finite, presumably most are already filled.
The number of players far, far outweighs the number of post-playing jobs available

Reading FC's annual report is interesting in this regard: Number of players = 39.

Number of "football management and coaching staff" = 74

Clubs needs mulitple coaches and managers for every one of their age groups.
They need scouts for scouting transfer targets.
They need scouts and analysts for who they are playing next week.
They need player liaison personnel.
They need sporting directors. They need guest speakers to entertain the executive boxes.
The FA need coaches and managers for all of their age groups.

A lot of this is also required in the women's game too, at each age group. Yes these jobs pay less well than being a footballer, but there are jobs galore in football, and being a former pro opens the doors to these in ways that is much easier than if you come up the hard way, i.e. through doing your badges without a football CV.

This is before you even factor in all the punditry required, including local journalism, not just MOTD and Sky Sports.

Honestly if you can't make a successful career in football having been a professional footballer, your heart probably isn't in it.

Problem is that there are so many ex-pros and relatively few other football jobs. I assume that 74 covers all age groups. Obviously this and the fact that these jobs are generally pretty enjoyable jobs that a lot of people would go for means that the pay is pretty poor. Doubt the average academy coach is on much more than minimum wage

There are very few jobs in media that pay a decent whack

Whilst it’s probably right that an ex pro can find a football related job if they have other people skills (esp with younger people), it’s going to be a big step down wage wise from being a pro. Dunno about everyone else but if you told me in 4 years time I’m worth about 10% of what I am now I’d find that quite hard to come to terms with

[Snowflake Royal]

The list of post-career jobs you quote is finite, presumably most are already filled.
The number of players far, far outweighs the number of post-playing jobs available

Reading FC's annual report is interesting in this regard: Number of players = 39.

Number of "football management and coaching staff" = 74

Clubs needs mulitple coaches and managers for every one of their age groups.
They need scouts for scouting transfer targets.
They need scouts and analysts for who they are playing next week.
They need player liaison personnel.
They need sporting directors. They need guest speakers to entertain the executive boxes.
The FA need coaches and managers for all of their age groups.

A lot of this is also required in the women's game too, at each age group. Yes these jobs pay less well than being a footballer, but there are jobs galore in football, and being a former pro opens the doors to these in ways that is much easier than if you come up the hard way, i.e. through doing your badges without a football CV.

This is before you even factor in all the punditry required, including local journalism, not just MOTD and Sky Sports.

Honestly if you can't make a successful career in football having been a professional footballer, your heart probably isn't in it.

Problem is that there are so many ex-pros and relatively few other football jobs. I assume that 74 covers all age groups. Obviously this and the fact that these jobs are generally pretty enjoyable jobs means that the pay is pretty poor. Doubt the average academy coach is on much more than minimum wage

There are very few jobs in media that pay a decent whack

Whilst it’s probably right that an ex pro can find a football related job if they have other people skills (esp with younger people), it’s going to be a big step down wage wise from being a pro. Dunno about everyone else but if you told me in 4 years time I’m worth about 10% of what I am now I’d find that quite hard to come to terms with

I have faith you'd be ok with going from £500k a year to £50k a year.

[Greatwesternline]

Reading FC's annual report is interesting in this regard: Number of players = 39.

Number of "football management and coaching staff" = 74

Clubs needs mulitple coaches and managers for every one of their age groups.
They need scouts for scouting transfer targets.
They need scouts and analysts for who they are playing next week.
They need player liaison personnel.
They need sporting directors. They need guest speakers to entertain the executive boxes.
The FA need coaches and managers for all of their age groups.

A lot of this is also required in the women's game too, at each age group. Yes these jobs pay less well than being a footballer, but there are jobs galore in football, and being a former pro opens the doors to these in ways that is much easier than if you come up the hard way, i.e. through doing your badges without a football CV.

This is before you even factor in all the punditry required, including local journalism, not just MOTD and Sky Sports.

Honestly if you can't make a successful career in football having been a professional footballer, your heart probably isn't in it.

Problem is that there are so many ex-pros and relatively few other football jobs. I assume that 74 covers all age groups. Obviously this and the fact that these jobs are generally pretty enjoyable jobs means that the pay is pretty poor. Doubt the average academy coach is on much more than minimum wage

There are very few jobs in media that pay a decent whack

Whilst it’s probably right that an ex pro can find a football related job if they have other people skills (esp with younger people), it’s going to be a big step down wage wise from being a pro. Dunno about everyone else but if you told me in 4 years time I’m worth about 10% of what I am now I’d find that quite hard to come to terms with

I have faith you'd be ok with going from £500k a year to £50k a year.

It's not like it comes as a surprise...

If you know you will earn £500k for 5 years, then you have £2.5m of earnings with which to make a good fist of your life. Get a financial advisor, make plans. As i said, footballers happily give away 10% of their wages to an agent. They can afford to pay 1% of their managed assets to a financial advisor. They literally pay someone to manage their lives!

[Hound]

Problem is that there are so many ex-pros and relatively few other football jobs. I assume that 74 covers all age groups. Obviously this and the fact that these jobs are generally pretty enjoyable jobs means that the pay is pretty poor. Doubt the average academy coach is on much more than minimum wage

There are very few jobs in media that pay a decent whack

Whilst it’s probably right that an ex pro can find a football related job if they have other people skills (esp with younger people), it’s going to be a big step down wage wise from being a pro. Dunno about everyone else but if you told me in 4 years time I’m worth about 10% of what I am now I’d find that quite hard to come to terms with

I have faith you'd be ok with going from £500k a year to £50k a year.

It's not like it comes as a surprise...

If you know you will earn £500k for 5 years, then you have £2.5m of earnings with which to make a good fist of your life. Get a financial advisor, make plans. As i said, footballers happily give away 10% of their wages to an agent. They can afford to pay 1% of their managed assets to a financial advisor. They literally pay someone to manage their lives!

Yeah granted they should prepare. But also guess there’s so much uncertainty about when that end will come it also makes it difficult. It might be 22 or it might be 38

Don’t think many of them will earn 500k outside of champ and even then half of that is nabbed in tax. Yes still a decent amount but not going to set you up for a comfortable living for life

I don’t feel sorry for them, it’s a cracking lifestyle on the whole and most of us would have loved to have done it. But doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come with a lot of difficulties when you retire. Don’t think there are many careers where your peak earning potential comes so early in life

[Snowball]

It would stress me a bit, but some people on here are saying its worse for footballers than a nurse working in the NHS, which is patent nonsense.

Has anyone literally said the bit in bold? - may have missed it but that is naturally nonsense. But looking at the players we have on our books at the moment, if the club does go pop they will fit in to a number of categories.

Yes, Snowball, top of page 141

Context is everything

(A) I am not talking about ALL footballers but READING footballers, who

Live every day with massive uncertainty

Cannot be 100% sure per month of getting paid

Cannot give notice

Have no redundancy pay

NURSES

Do not expect the NHS to disappear at the stroke if a pen

DO expect to get paid without fail every month

Get redundancy pay

Can give notice and walk away

[jd82]

Won't somebody please think of the footballers!

[Arnie_Pie]

Howe thinks deal may be concluded in May after the season ends - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68626876

Just hope we are still in L1.

[Hound]

Reading FC's annual report is interesting in this regard: Number of players = 39.

Number of "football management and coaching staff" = 74

Clubs needs mulitple coaches and managers for every one of their age groups.
They need scouts for scouting transfer targets.
They need scouts and analysts for who they are playing next week.
They need player liaison personnel.
They need sporting directors. They need guest speakers to entertain the executive boxes.
The FA need coaches and managers for all of their age groups.

A lot of this is also required in the women's game too, at each age group. Yes these jobs pay less well than being a footballer, but there are jobs galore in football, and being a former pro opens the doors to these in ways that is much easier than if you come up the hard way, i.e. through doing your badges without a football CV.

This is before you even factor in all the punditry required, including local journalism, not just MOTD and Sky Sports.

Honestly if you can't make a successful career in football having been a professional footballer, your heart probably isn't in it.

Problem is that there are so many ex-pros and relatively few other football jobs. I assume that 74 covers all age groups. Obviously this and the fact that these jobs are generally pretty enjoyable jobs means that the pay is pretty poor. Doubt the average academy coach is on much more than minimum wage

There are very few jobs in media that pay a decent whack

Whilst it’s probably right that an ex pro can find a football related job if they have other people skills (esp with younger people), it’s going to be a big step down wage wise from being a pro. Dunno about everyone else but if you told me in 4 years time I’m worth about 10% of what I am now I’d find that quite hard to come to terms with

I have faith you'd be ok with going from £500k a year to £50k a year.

150k to 15 less so. And that’s the area we’re talking about with us though

But even 500 to 50 is a huge change in lifestyle and expectation

[Hound]

Howe thinks deal may be concluded in May after the season ends - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68626876

Just hope we are still in L1.

It does kind of feel that we haven’t really gone anywhere much in the last few months despite all the excitement over the weekend

Were still waiting for dai to accept an offer as we have been all season

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Talk Reading advising exclusivity will not happen until end of month but sponsorship deals are in place to cover the March shortfall

[Pepe the Horseman]

From the Telegraph

Reading are aiming to enter exclusivity talks by the end of the month with Dai Yongge considering two serious offers, one of which is Genevra Associates.

Sponsorship deals should cover March’s £1 million shortfall so a points deduction is unlikely.

What do we know about Genevra?

[WestYorksRoyal]

John Percy update. Semi reliable but fell for Storey's bullshit.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... rs-offers/

If true, shortfall issues resolve for March. Exclusivity targeted by the end of the month (i.e., next week). Genevra are back.

Gotta be honest, I couldn't give a shit who owns us next season so long as it's not Dai Yongge. Will happily take Genevra.

[Forbury Lion]

Won't somebody please think of the footballers!

If you put it into context

If one of us earns more than a nurse we are likely to live a more expensive lifestyle than a nurse - have a bigger mortgage, have more kids, have a more expensive car on lease, that sort of thing. This is a natural thing, we are living within our means and all is good, same as footballers.
If our employer starts paying us late and making cut backs, we have the option to look for an alternative role elsewhere which offers more security.

Footballers earn more money than many of us, but they still need to pay the rent/mortgage etc. Yes, arguably they should plan for emergency situations like this but if you are working for an employer, the bare minimum that employer should do is pay you the agreed wages on the agreed date each month. They can't say enough is enough, I'm handing my notice in and will go work for Wycombe, Although I reckon a smart player/agent would build that into their next contract as a early release trigger - Fail to pay me my full wages on time x number of times and I have the option to terminate this contract and leave on a free transfer.

Nurses may be underpaid, but the NHS to the best of my knowledge doesn't pay them late and isn't going to cease to exist, so from that perspective the Nurses have some security. They too have the option to seek employment elsewhere.

[Hound]

Massive well done to the commercial team btw if they’ve made up a 1m shortfall so quickly

Be interesting to see what’s been dreamed up

[Forbury Lion]

Massive well done to the commercial team btw if they’ve made up a 1m shortfall so quickly

Be interesting to see what’s been dreamed up

Might have been a good night at the casino for Dai and he paid it into the wrong bank account?

[WestYorksRoyal]

Massive well done to the commercial team btw if they’ve made up a 1m shortfall so quickly

Be interesting to see what’s been dreamed up

SCL?