CONFRIMED: Latest rumours Confrimed as Unconfrimed

[Sutekh]

I recall SJM had a clause where he got more from Zingarevich when RFC were promoted the season he sold the club. That was a post-sale clause, so they can happen (though in this case SJM had only received half the cash anyway and we all know what happened when the rest was due).

Still find it hard to believe how SJM was unable to find any buyer/interest for a PL or PL challenging football club during his latter time as owner and all he could get was a totally potless Russian. If only he'd got that bit right we might still have a car park and not have a wazack for an owner.

He was selling in a business environment in which USA buyers hadn't yet been sold on football and all of Europe the continent was going through austerity and the eurozone crisis. Business conditions were tough.

It was also a distressed sale, SJM was being bled dry by his failed property ventures and he banked with RBS who were calling all his business overdrafts.

Also Zingarevich was a Russian caught up in the 2013 Cyprus banking crisis, which destroyed a lot of low level russian oligarch wealth and cashflow.

We had quite a bit of bad luck there.

And yet Leicester managed to find their Thai gentleman at about that time. Believe that Thai gentleman spent a lot of his time in Newbury with the horse racing interests - so close, if only the two had connected....

But then bad luck and snatching defeat from jaws of victory seems to be Reading's thing much of the time (helps make things like 106, when they do happen, so sweet though).

[RATM]

Still find it hard to believe how SJM was unable to find any buyer/interest for a PL or PL challenging football club during his latter time as owner and all he could get was a totally potless Russian. If only he'd got that bit right we might still have a car park and not have a wazack for an owner.

He was selling in a business environment in which USA buyers hadn't yet been sold on football and all of Europe the continent was going through austerity and the eurozone crisis. Business conditions were tough.

It was also a distressed sale, SJM was being bled dry by his failed property ventures and he banked with RBS who were calling all his business overdrafts.

Also Zingarevich was a Russian caught up in the 2013 Cyprus banking crisis, which destroyed a lot of low level russian oligarch wealth and cashflow.

We had quite a bit of bad luck there.

And yet Leicester managed to find their Thai gentleman at about that time. Believe that Thai gentleman spent a lot of his time in Newbury with the horse racing interests - so close, if only the two had connected....

But then bad luck and snatching defeat from jaws of victory seems to be Reading's thing much of the time (helps make things like 106, when they do happen, so sweet though).

The former Leicester owner actually lived locally in Stanford Dingley

[WestYorksRoyal]

Didn't the Leicester owners enquire here to SJM, and he didn't trust them?

I'm sympathetic to the mistake of selling to AZ. He had a connection to the area through Bearwood school, and his Dad was a billionaire. It's perfectly rational to think the family as a whole will fund the club, and Russian owners were doing well at Chelsea. It all looked like a decent fit.

It was at the time seen as the only way to keep us competitive. If you look at the transfer revenue in SJM's later years, we were consistently selling star players and barely breaking even. He'd have had to cut us into a lower Championship side without promotion ambitions to stay on.

And his second sale to the Thais was a proper fire sale scenario; we were losing money hand over fist from contracts like Pogrebnyak and Drenthe, and Le Fondre was sold just to pay HMRC.

In hindsight, the Pogrebnyak signing was the first clue that things were changing and not in a good way. A wage structure busting 4 year contract is light years away from what we all knew at the "Reading Way". I don't think any of us were wised up enough to notice and call it out at that point though.

[katweslowski]

You could honestly write a book on the last 24 years of Reading history and it would be gripping and depressing in equal measures.

Being a solid championship team
The journey to putting together magical team
106
Premier league seasons
The in between years as we regained top flight status
Then the slow fade of the club to this point
... And who knows where else

[andrew1957]

I have posted a number of times that I thought the end game is the destruction of the club - whether by design or stupidity it is hard to say. But the summary of what Nigel Howe said is that there are no new buyers at the table and he will have no involvement in the sale process after 4 October - as he is banned. And as Dai doesn’t seem to do anything, there will be no one at the club with the authority to deal with any new potential buyer until his 3 month suspension ends. He also implied that the club has around 3 months funding from the Olise buyout, so it will likely be too late for any new buyer by then. And frankly any new buyer would be mad to waste their time negotiating with Dai anyway as “it seems” he moves the sale goal posts all the time.

So there are only two hopes for survival. 1/ either a white knight appears and buys the club within the next 10 days or 2/ Dai or his family find some money down the back of the sofa to fund and stabilise the club until it is a saleable asset. I would say 1/ is a non starter and so it seems to me we are now entirely dependent on the Dai family for the survival of the club - in which case judging by their actions over the last few years, I would say we are pretty much oxford.

Am I missing anything?

[Snowflake Royal]

Didn't the Leicester owners enquire here to SJM, and he didn't trust them?

I'm sympathetic to the mistake of selling to AZ. He had a connection to the area through Bearwood school, and his Dad was a billionaire. It's perfectly rational to think the family as a whole will fund the club, and Russian owners were doing well at Chelsea. It all looked like a decent fit.

It was at the time seen as the only way to keep us competitive. If you look at the transfer revenue in SJM's later years, we were consistently selling star players and barely breaking even. He'd have had to cut us into a lower Championship side without promotion ambitions to stay on.

And his second sale to the Thais was a proper fire sale scenario; we were losing money hand over fist from contracts like Pogrebnyak and Drenthe, and Le Fondre was sold just to pay HMRC.

In hindsight, the Pogrebnyak signing was the first clue that things were changing and not in a good way. A wage structure busting 4 year contract is light years away from what we all knew at the "Reading Way". I don't think any of us were wised up enough to notice and call it out at that point though.

I was very uncomfortable with the rumoured £60k a week deal and said as much, there were others too. But it was easy to put it down to media exaggeration given how well we had previously been run.

[windermereROYAL]

I have posted a number of times that I thought the end game is the destruction of the club - whether by design or stupidity it is hard to say. But the summary of what Nigel Howe said is that there are no new buyers at the table and he will have no involvement in the sale process after 4 October - as he is banned. And as Dai doesn’t seem to do anything, there will be no one at the club with the authority to deal with any new potential buyer until his 3 month suspension ends. He also implied that the club has around 3 months funding from the Olise buyout, so it will likely be too late for any new buyer by then. And frankly any new buyer would be mad to waste their time negotiating with Dai anyway as “it seems” he moves the sale goal posts all the time.

So there are only two hopes for survival. 1/ either a white knight appears and buys the club within the next 10 days or 2/ Dai or his family find some money down the back of the sofa to fund and stabilise the club until it is a saleable asset. I would say 1/ is a non starter and so it seems to me we are now entirely dependent on the Dai family for the survival of the club - in which case judging by their actions over the last few years, I would say we are pretty much oxford.

Am I missing anything?

Not sure losing Howe from the negotiating table is such a big blow. amazing how much progress the sale of the club as raced along since last October.
He said in his "interview" that he would leave it the capable hands of the top management, I`m buggered if I know who they are.

[stealthpapes]

Didn't the Leicester owners enquire here to SJM, and he didn't trust them?

I'm sympathetic to the mistake of selling to AZ. He had a connection to the area through Bearwood school, and his Dad was a billionaire. It's perfectly rational to think the family as a whole will fund the club, and Russian owners were doing well at Chelsea. It all looked like a decent fit.

It was at the time seen as the only way to keep us competitive. If you look at the transfer revenue in SJM's later years, we were consistently selling star players and barely breaking even. He'd have had to cut us into a lower Championship side without promotion ambitions to stay on.

And his second sale to the Thais was a proper fire sale scenario; we were losing money hand over fist from contracts like Pogrebnyak and Drenthe, and Le Fondre was sold just to pay HMRC.

In hindsight, the Pogrebnyak signing was the first clue that things were changing and not in a good way. A wage structure busting 4 year contract is light years away from what we all knew at the "Reading Way". I don't think any of us were wised up enough to notice and call it out at that point though.

Pavel not so much, free transfer for a guy who'd just had a solid enough record at lower end of Prem. Even Danny Guthrie at the time looked like a safe enough bet - I don't think any of the 2012-13 transfers look particularly mad. Royston Drenthe, the following summer, is the first one that I look at and ... yeah.

(Even that summer - Wayne Bridge shores up a weak left side of defence, Baird was a good signing albeit on a short contract and Danny Williams was broadly excellent for a number of years. Billy Sharp on loan should have been god-tier).

It's a couple of years later, once we've cycled through a few managers and we're carrying players from not just the last manager but the one before that.

[WestYorksRoyal]

I think football is cyclical. It's hard to see now, but in 10 - 15 years, we'll probably look back on this as a bad memory and a club like Bournemouth or Brentford will be lamenting their fall from grace. There are many clubs currently above us who have seen darker moments than we are currently in; we've only fallen as low as the 3rd tier and should have enough to stay up again.

[windermereROYAL]

I think football is cyclical. It's hard to see now, but in 10 - 15 years, we'll probably look back on this as a bad memory and a club like Bournemouth or Brentford will be lamenting their fall from grace. There are many clubs currently above us who have seen darker moments than we are currently in; we've only fallen as low as the 3rd tier and should have enough to stay up again.

You seem confident we`ll have a team here in 10-15 years, I`ll be happy to have one next year.

[stealthpapes]

lol@"football is cyclical"

What you mean is that it has peaks and troughs.

[WestYorksRoyal]

I think football is cyclical. It's hard to see now, but in 10 - 15 years, we'll probably look back on this as a bad memory and a club like Bournemouth or Brentford will be lamenting their fall from grace. There are many clubs currently above us who have seen darker moments than we are currently in; we've only fallen as low as the 3rd tier and should have enough to stay up again.

You seem confident we`ll have a team here in 10-15 years, I`ll be happy to have one next year.

12 months ago we all said we wouldn't survive another 12 months.

[morganb]

https://x.com/JonathanShakeri/status/18 ... EciFg&s=19

https://x.com/DanielLoitz/status/183779 ... Ec_Kg&s=19

Daniel Loitz speaks on Dai - link to recording and summary

[Snowflake Royal]

I think football is cyclical. It's hard to see now, but in 10 - 15 years, we'll probably look back on this as a bad memory and a club like Bournemouth or Brentford will be lamenting their fall from grace. There are many clubs currently above us who have seen darker moments than we are currently in; we've only fallen as low as the 3rd tier and should have enough to stay up again.

I don't think there are many teams who have seen darker moments. And still exist.

Sure lots have had administration, or double relegations etc. There are relatively few for whom it seemed a sale is impossible, and the only way out.

This is a solid year of failed takeovers. Two to four of them.

No money in from the owner for more like 18 months to two years, with no real effort to structure the club so it can fund itself.

The Oystons were dreadful at Blackpool, and they would be one I'd consider, but there were active. Dai's just done a runner.

And the tale of woe basically goes all the way back to 2011, with the odd little reprieve and a hundred false dawns.

[WestYorksRoyal]

I think football is cyclical. It's hard to see now, but in 10 - 15 years, we'll probably look back on this as a bad memory and a club like Bournemouth or Brentford will be lamenting their fall from grace. There are many clubs currently above us who have seen darker moments than we are currently in; we've only fallen as low as the 3rd tier and should have enough to stay up again.

I don't think there are many teams who have seen darker moments. And still exist.

Sure lots have had administration, or double relegations etc. There are relatively few for whom it seemed a sale is impossible, and the only way out.

This is a solid year of failed takeovers. Two to four of them.

No money in from the owner for more like 18 months to two years, with no real effort to structure the club so it can fund itself.

The Oystons were dreadful at Blackpool, and they would be one I'd consider, but there were active. Dai's just done a runner.

And the tale of woe basically goes all the way back to 2011, with the odd little reprieve and a hundred false dawns.

Bolton were 1 hour away from going bust. Brighton were bottom of the 4th tier playing their home games in Gillingham, which would have been against Conference regulations had they got relegated. To suggest we're in as bleak a situation is clearly false.

I'm not saying everything will be alright as nobody can say that. But we're several steps away from the situation being as dire as theirs. We have the Olise money to tide us over for a few months, the Dais just proved that they can pay when it's in their interests. They find a way to limp on instead of facing insolvency and losing their asset for nothing. So long as we stay alive, we keep fighting as we can bounce back.

[Lower West]

I think football is cyclical. It's hard to see now, but in 10 - 15 years, we'll probably look back on this as a bad memory and a club like Bournemouth or Brentford will be lamenting their fall from grace. There are many clubs currently above us who have seen darker moments than we are currently in; we've only fallen as low as the 3rd tier and should have enough to stay up again.

I don't think there are many teams who have seen darker moments. And still exist.

Sure lots have had administration, or double relegations etc. There are relatively few for whom it seemed a sale is impossible, and the only way out.

This is a solid year of failed takeovers. Two to four of them.

No money in from the owner for more like 18 months to two years, with no real effort to structure the club so it can fund itself.

The Oystons were dreadful at Blackpool, and they would be one I'd consider, but there were active. Dai's just done a runner.

And the tale of woe basically goes all the way back to 2011, with the odd little reprieve and a hundred false dawns.

Bolton were 1 hour away from going bust. Brighton were bottom of the 4th tier playing their home games in Gillingham, which would have been against Conference regulations had they got relegated. To suggest we're in as bleak a situation is clearly false.

I'm not saying everything will be alright as nobody can say that. But we're several steps away from the situation being as dire as theirs. We have the Olise money to tide us over for a few months, the Dais just proved that they can pay when it's in their interests. They find a way to limp on instead of facing insolvency and losing their asset for nothing. So long as we stay alive, we keep fighting as we can bounce back.

The football club has little to no value though. Everything Sir John built to create a solid financial foundation has been wiped away.

[Sutekh]

Some deranged conspiracy theorist calling into BBCRB too. Said he wasn't concerned about today and that a company affiliated to Dai will take us over, which is a good thing and everything will be fine.

Did he have a Chinese accent and was there a delay on the line as if they were calling from far away?

We know it's all utter bollox what he was saying about this Blue River going to buy the club as if it's affiliated to Dai the FL aren't going to let him sell the club to some other company that he owns or has an interest in.

Just waiting now for the next piece of outlandish hopeum to get everyone going for this week.

[Clyde1998]

Didn't the Leicester owners enquire here to SJM, and he didn't trust them?

I'm sympathetic to the mistake of selling to AZ. He had a connection to the area through Bearwood school, and his Dad was a billionaire. It's perfectly rational to think the family as a whole will fund the club, and Russian owners were doing well at Chelsea. It all looked like a decent fit.

It was at the time seen as the only way to keep us competitive. If you look at the transfer revenue in SJM's later years, we were consistently selling star players and barely breaking even. He'd have had to cut us into a lower Championship side without promotion ambitions to stay on.

And his second sale to the Thais was a proper fire sale scenario; we were losing money hand over fist from contracts like Pogrebnyak and Drenthe, and Le Fondre was sold just to pay HMRC.

In hindsight, the Pogrebnyak signing was the first clue that things were changing and not in a good way. A wage structure busting 4 year contract is light years away from what we all knew at the "Reading Way". I don't think any of us were wised up enough to notice and call it out at that point though.

I think that Pogrebnyak signing was also a shift away from the manager having the final say on which players were signed, in terms of whether the manager want the player to be signed. We moved towards players getting signed without the manager wanting them and then having to somehow integrate them into the squad. That's probably a factor as to why, post-Madejski, we've usually made really poor signings.

If we had the resources under Madejski, we never would've made a Pogrebnyak or Drenthe signing. The manager almost certainly wouldn't have wanted that sort of player in the squad and likely the scouting team would've picked up on their character (especially Drenthe).

[downloaded]

Guardian Football Weekly podcast will cover the latest developments on one of this week's shows. I think it's likely to be Tuesday.

[Clyde1998]

Guardian Football Weekly podcast will cover the latest developments on one of this week's shows. I think it's likely to be Tuesday.

Will be interesting to hear if they've got any additional information. At least we've got national news talking about the issue.