Embargos, HMRC Payment defaults, non payment of wages, the usual under Dai Wrongge

[East Grinstead Royal]

Apart from selling the club, which is literally the only thing he can do and that we want him to do.

[Crusader Royal]

And which ground is up to standard that someone would be willing to share or rent to Reading for next to nothing?

You're talking about it from a footballing perspective. An administrator need not care about such things. A stadium can be found to complete fixtures as required.

I think the FL, not to mention plod, might have something to say if any administators suddenly said Reading would be playing at Bottom Meadow for the forseeable.

There would be no point administrators moving us to a stadium without it having relevant safety certification and EFL approval. Finding a suitable ground at this point of the season would be very difficult. You really only have options of existing FL grounds and oddly they will already have fixtures to fulfil which will probably clash with at least some of ours…..

[Franchise FC]

Pompey fans raised £2.5m for their club. Why can't Reading do similar? Even £500k would probably get us over March's key obligations and buy more time for a deal until late April.

It wouldn't, from what I heard this morning it's much worse than that. And the issue is the lack of trust in Dai, you're asking average fans to raid their savings and give money to a Chinese Billionaire who doesn't want to spend his own.

I'm expecting that the club will announce something by the end of the week.

Sounds pretty dire. The Directors must be getting close to wrongful trading; they can be banned from other directorships and roles in the UK if they keep trading knowing the club is insolvent, and make themselves liable to personal claims from creditors who are left out of pocket.

They have the authority to place us in administration, but it may not be possible as someone needs to agree to pay the administrators. It sure as hell won't be Dai. This comes back to whether SJM, SCL and other local business peers could club together, as administration >>>>>>>>liquidation.

I’m sure this has been mentioned before but, were the club to be placed into administration, the administrators would be paid from the proceeds of either selling the club or liquidating. A process over which Dai would have no control

[Royals and Racers]

Statement from the EFL- Leicester 1 EFL 0

[Greatwesternline]

Statement from the EFL- Leicester 1 EFL 0

EFL thinking it can police a club's profit and losses for a season before they have actually been reported is bold.

Thought you can see the conundrum. The ELF know that Leicester will break the FFP rules this season, but unless the club spends two seasons in the EFL wont have a chance to sanction them.

You'd think the EFL would have learned this lesson from the QPR saga all those years ago and changed its rules. Turns out the clubs who run the EFL aren't very good at governance. I'm shocked.

[WestYorksRoyal]

My learning from this whole debacle is that it's just a broken system at we've found ourselves at the sharp end, like many before us. I don't think the EFL are much to blame, they're a representative body of their members with limited powers. They can't force Dai to sell and they can't punish teams who reach the Premier League and stay there.

The regulator can't come soon enough, otherwise expect other clubs to experience similar.

[Wycombe Royal]

Part of the problem here is that you have two different organisations (EFL and EPL) with different rules, and even within the EFL you have different rules for different divisions.

What they need is a unified approach to profit and sustainability that can be applied across the divisions. For example, each division has permitted loss level (with consistent rules as to what costs can and can't be excluded) and the amounts can be combined depending which division a team is in for the season in which the profit/loss was incurred.

[RFCMod]

And which ground is up to standard that someone would be willing to share or rent to Reading for next to nothing?

You're talking about it from a footballing perspective. An administrator need not care about such things. A stadium can be found to complete fixtures as required.

I think the FL, not to mention plod, might have something to say if any administators suddenly said Reading would be playing at Bottom Meadow for the forseeable.

Im in, 30 min walk for us

[WestYorksRoyal]

The bigger problem is that they're backwards looking. An owner can go nuts for a few years, distort the market and by the time they're held to account the club is reliant upon them. If they then lose the interest or means, the club is fcuked. I'm not saying where we are was predictable, but a situation such as ours (points deduction causing relegation, followed by loss of interest and turmoil) was always feasible with the rules designed as they are. We see similar at Everton, where Moshiri can no longer afford to finance Everton as his business interests have been hurt by Russian sanctions. They're now reliant upon loans from 777 to keep up with the player wages and stadium commitments he has locked them into. Also a desperate situation.

Clubs should be required to provide forecasts that demonstrate their sustainability and be blocked from registering players they can't afford. See Spain and Barcelona's recent troubles. They're crying over not being able to win everything, but they won't die. If owners want to invest, they should deposit capital which the authorities have oversight over to help the club manage obligations.

If anything, ourselves and the EFL avoided the worst situation with us. We were lucky not to be relegated until 2023, and how much worse would it have been had we still had big contracts for the likes of Moore, Aluko and Baldock?

[Stranded]

It's even more simple than that certainly in situations like ours - you make a rule that an owner cannot loan a club money - if they want to use a benefactor owner model then fine, but you make money when the club makes money when it loses money, you cover it.

If an owner chooses not to, s/he has to sell in good time else the club can be "siezed" by the EFL ran at the bar minimum i.e. as if it is in admin and sold by the EFL to an owner that passes its test at a "fair market value". At which point, the former owner may received a percentage but a much lower one than if they had just sold themselves.

[Elm Park Kid]

It wouldn't, from what I heard this morning it's much worse than that. And the issue is the lack of trust in Dai, you're asking average fans to raid their savings and give money to a Chinese Billionaire who doesn't want to spend his own.

I'm expecting that the club will announce something by the end of the week.

Sounds pretty dire. The Directors must be getting close to wrongful trading; they can be banned from other directorships and roles in the UK if they keep trading knowing the club is insolvent, and make themselves liable to personal claims from creditors who are left out of pocket.

They have the authority to place us in administration, but it may not be possible as someone needs to agree to pay the administrators. It sure as hell won't be Dai. This comes back to whether SJM, SCL and other local business peers could club together, as administration >>>>>>>>liquidation.

I’m sure this has been mentioned before but, were the club to be placed into administration, the administrators would be paid from the proceeds of either selling the club or liquidating. A process over which Dai would have no control

The issue is whether the administrators feel confident that the sale of the club (without the stadium) would generate enough revenue to pay them. Derby's administrators ended up costing over £3m - and it's really questionable how much RFC would be worth.

Also, i'm not an expert in this, but in the case of administration I think that Dai does still have to agree to the sale.

[East Grinstead Royal]

It's even more simple than that certainly in situations like ours - you make a rule that an owner cannot loan a club money - if they want to use a benefactor owner model then fine, but you make money when the club makes money when it loses money, you cover it.

If an owner chooses not to, s/he has to sell in good time else the club can be "siezed" by the EFL ran at the bar minimum i.e. as if it is in admin and sold by the EFL to an owner that passes its test at a "fair market value". At which point, the former owner may received a percentage but a much lower one than if they had just sold themselves.

Excellent post, Stranded.

[WestYorksRoyal]

The EFL can't currently do that though as it contravenes UK company law. That's why it comes back to being a broken system that needs government involvement to fix. Even with that, you need to spend time working out the legal fine print before you go taking companion out of individuals hands. Dai may not appear to give a shit, but I bet he cares enough to get expensive lawyers involved if someone tried to take the club off him.

[Snowflake Royal]

It's even more simple than that certainly in situations like ours - you make a rule that an owner cannot loan a club money - if they want to use a benefactor owner model then fine, but you make money when the club makes money when it loses money, you cover it.

If an owner chooses not to, s/he has to sell in good time else the club can be "siezed" by the EFL ran at the bar minimum i.e. as if it is in admin and sold by the EFL to an owner that passes its test at a "fair market value". At which point, the former owner may received a percentage but a much lower one than if they had just sold themselves.

Excellent post, Stranded.

100%

[Dirk Gently]

Also, i'm not an expert in this, but in the case of administration I think that Dai does still have to agree to the sale.

The votes on whether a proposed sale or any other settlement are amongst the creditors, with the number of votes for each creditor being proportional to how much each is owed. So if Dai is owed 90% of the debt he gets 90% of the votes on what happens.

[Sutekh]

Also, i'm not an expert in this, but in the case of administration I think that Dai does still have to agree to the sale.

The votes on whether a proposed sale or any other settlement are amongst the creditors, with the number of votes for each creditor being proportional to how much each is owed. So if Dai is owed 90% of the debt he gets 90% of the votes on what happens.

Quick, get some fans to become major creditors asap.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

SJM was at Bearwood yesterday, apparently the first time he's visited.

I know he's not got the cash he once had but maybe he's assisting with getting funds together to help out over the next few weeks?

[Elm Park Kid]

I heard this morning that SCL have paid this month's tax bill.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

I heard this morning that SCL have paid this month's tax bill.

Those guys are absolute legends if true.

[Orion1871]

I heard this morning that SCL have paid this month's tax bill.

Those guys are absolute legends if true.

And let's face it, absolute mugs at the same time.