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

[Stranded]

Selles mentioned in his press conference, that players and staff have been assured they will be paid tomorrow.

Which is nice.

I’m not defending Dai in any way here, he is an absolute disaster zone

But with the chat on wages - we’ve always paid them haven’t we? At least to our own players, obvs some chat on loanees. When it’s not been on time it’s been 1 or 2 days late

Again it just seems utter incompetence on his part making it even a discussion and losing us all those points. He seems to actually be able to pay them

This much is true, he has always paid our contracted players just on occasion a day or two late due to being an idiot (or employing idiots) who can't factor in public holidays or weekends.

Interesting quotes from Selles today at his presser when a journalist stating it is excellent news people will be paid tomorrow:

"That's not excellent news. That's a normal thing. You do your job and you get paid for that".

Safe to say he's more than a bit pissed with the owner as well.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Selles mentioned in his press conference, that players and staff have been assured they will be paid tomorrow.

Which is nice.

I’m not defending Dai in any way here, he is an absolute disaster zone

But with the chat on wages - we’ve always paid them haven’t we? At least to our own players, obvs some chat on loanees. When it’s not been on time it’s been 1 or 2 days late

Again it just seems utter incompetence on his part making it even a discussion and losing us all those points. He seems to actually be able to pay them

Is he paying them though? It could be the accountants smelt the coffee in the summer and some of the ST money, Puscas money etc has been put to one side.

[Hound]

Well who knows but it’s basically the same thing

[WestYorksRoyal]

It has cost us 4 points and it's creating anxiety for staff living month to month with uncertainty. They all had to live with reports of issues this week, even if they are untrue. It's not a sustainable situation.

But can see a counter argument that 4 points for late payments worth about 3 days in aggregate is a bit harsh.

[PieEater]

It has cost us 4 points and it's creating anxiety for staff living month to month with uncertainty. They all had to live with reports of issues this week, even if they are untrue. It's not a sustainable situation.

But can see a counter argument that applying 4 points for late payments worth about 3 days in aggregate last season to this season is a bit harsh.

fixed it for you.

Competitive integrity of the league. Not.

[skipper]

Bugger, I asked Hob Nob the other week if the points deduction for not paying in the 125% was on going, and it was implied that it was a one off penalty.

Turns out it might not be. We could win all our games for the rest of the season and still end up relegated. (I didn't do the maths, but you get my drift)

The irony of playing our best football in years, with our best squad in years and ultimately the most optimism in years only to be dash by the owner. Has a club ever had it so together, but for a terrible owner like this before?

Reading Till' I Die.

[Snowflake Royal]

Selles mentioned in his press conference, that players and staff have been assured they will be paid tomorrow.

Which is nice.

I’m not defending Dai in any way here, he is an absolute disaster zone

But with the chat on wages - we’ve always paid them haven’t we? At least to our own players, obvs some chat on loanees. When it’s not been on time it’s been 1 or 2 days late

Again it just seems utter incompetence on his part making it even a discussion and losing us all those points. He seems to actually be able to pay them

This much is true, he has always paid our contracted players just on occasion a day or two late due to being an idiot (or employing idiots) who can't factor in public holidays or weekends.

Interesting quotes from Selles today at his presser when a journalist stating it is excellent news people will be paid tomorrow:

"That's not excellent news. That's a normal thing. You do your job and you get paid for that".

Safe to say he's more than a bit pissed with the owner as well.

That's an extra defeat's worth of goodwill in Selles' account with the bank of Snowflake.

[Stranded]

Well, the latest rumour that seems to be being taken as fact on Twitter without any evidence is that the club will go into Administration next week.

Seems to be being welcomed with open arms by some, which is just a bit stupid really - up there with the whole relegation will be a great reset view.

If Dai is prepared to lose control of the club by going into admin, then he would surely just sell control to someone now and get more cash.

[Snowflake Royal]

Administration is bad, and sounds like bollocks. But it does pretty much guarantee an end to Dai. And one of the big concerns about a change of ownership is that no one trusts who he'd sell to, so someone else managing the sale is potentially positive. And it signals the beginning of the end of the uncertainty. One way or another.

So I can see why some people would react like it's good.

[blythspartan]

I was sure a couple of weeks ago all would be well, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we go into administration next week.

I can’t see where the rumour has come from, unless someone within the club has leaked the news. I would be surprised if Dai didn’t try to sell up before putting us into admin.

[Snowflake Royal]

It's been pretty clear for months that lots of fans don't understand how you get to administration and just think financial problems automatically = administration.

And we all know how something written on twitter just inexplicably becomes truth after a couple of people have repeated it.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

If it is true then it's a very bad situation to be involved in with the club, although it does give us a route out of Dai at the very least. I'd just be concerned with who we would bring in though knowing that relegation to L2 would end up being very likely and what level of investment someone would be willing to put in as we'd be chalking up even more costs over the administration period as well.

[WestYorksRoyal]

I'll admit to having misunderstood administration. I thought HMRC could do it and that would be a worst case, but only owners, the Board or secured creditors can. That basically means it has to be Dai, as he controls the Board and is the only lender with a secured loan.

If he chooses not to, then all HMRC can do is push for winding up, which is much worse.

I would take administration. Relegation to L2 nailed on, but Dai gone and a chance to rebuild after his disastrous tenure. But I don't think it's currently on the table until Dai realises how bad things are. If that is after more non wage payments, points deduction and relegation again then we're in L2 on -12 and the spectre of non league football, which I never thought I'd see from Reading, will loom large.

[Stranded]

Bugger, I asked Hob Nob the other week if the points deduction for not paying in the 125% was on going, and it was implied that it was a one off penalty.

Turns out it might not be. We could win all our games for the rest of the season and still end up relegated. (I didn't do the maths, but you get my drift)

The irony of playing our best football in years, with our best squad in years and ultimately the most optimism in years only to be dash by the owner. Has a club ever had it so together, but for a terrible owner like this before?

Reading Till' I Die.

No it is a one off.

Missing wages is not a one off. Every time we miss a wage payment, and it doesn't look like it will be the case today, then we would be open to a charge from the EFL which would go to a commission for a penalty, which is most likely to be points but is not guaranteed to be.

The 125% was just an agreement to delay getting the full 4 points, which given Dai either couldn't or had no intention of ever doing so, seems pretty pointless.

Anyway, the article on The Athletic today is without doubt the single most depressing read about our football club that I have had the misfortune to look at. Nothing massively new for those following closely, but we aren't the audience but details just how screwed the club is, what a horrible place it currently is to work and that unless Dai decides to sell at a price much lower than his valuation of 70 to 80 million - things are going to get a hell of a lot worse.

[Stranded]

Some of the highlights:

Pang not been seen at the club in 4 months
Comms non-existant, staff tend to see news in the media first
Dai close to impossible to get hold off, club have had to resort to going via that twat Kia as Dai only seems to pick up from him.
Talks have happened but Dai values the club at 70/80m, without the stadium
Players may be sold at any time at a lower that market price in order to get payment in now and keep the player until Jan
Overnight stays for most away game scrapped
A lot of the players here last year just didn't give a shit and the workplace was toxic

On the plus side, it does praise Selles and the work he is doing to turn the culture around in difficult circumstances.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Some of the highlights:

Pang not been seen at the club in 4 months
Comms non-existant, staff tend to see news in the media first
Dai close to impossible to get hold off, club have had to resort to going via that twat Kia as Dai only seems to pick up from him.
Talks have happened but Dai values the club at 70/80m, without the stadium
Players may be sold at any time at a lower that market price in order to get payment in now and keep the player until Jan
Overnight stays for most away game scrapped
A lot of the players here last year just didn't give a shit and the workplace was toxic

On the plus side, it does praise Selles and the work he is doing to turn the culture around in difficult circumstances.

Bowen and Selles' work is the only positive. It can't save the club and overcome the bigger issues by itself, but it can show would be investors the potential of the club.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Where is Dai's sister, Dai Xui Li, in all of this? Does she not own the club alongside himself and doesn't she reside in London?

[Stranded]

Oh and between them, Moore, Joao, Puscas and Meite took home £125k pw.

[blythspartan]

Some of the highlights:

Pang not been seen at the club in 4 months
Comms non-existant, staff tend to see news in the media first
Dai close to impossible to get hold off, club have had to resort to going via that twat Kia as Dai only seems to pick up from him.
Talks have happened but Dai values the club at 70/80m, without the stadium
Players may be sold at any time at a lower that market price in order to get payment in now and keep the player until Jan
Overnight stays for most away game scrapped
A lot of the players here last year just didn't give a shit and the workplace was toxic

On the plus side, it does praise Selles and the work he is doing to turn the culture around in difficult circumstances.

The article in the Athletic has just summarised what we already knew or had already worked out for ourselves i.e. we were aware that we had several players being paid far too much. Personally, I don’t see it as much of a revelation.

[Millsy]

Some of the highlights:

Pang not been seen at the club in 4 months
Comms non-existant, staff tend to see news in the media first
Dai close to impossible to get hold off, club have had to resort to going via that twat Kia as Dai only seems to pick up from him.
Talks have happened but Dai values the club at 70/80m, without the stadium
Players may be sold at any time at a lower that market price in order to get payment in now and keep the player until Jan
Overnight stays for most away game scrapped
A lot of the players here last year just didn't give a shit and the workplace was toxic

On the plus side, it does praise Selles and the work he is doing to turn the culture around in difficult circumstances.

Bowen and Selles' work is the only positive. It can't save the club and overcome the bigger issues by itself, but it can show would be investors the potential of the club.

Respect to Selles for what he does in these tough circumstances. Also to Ince. At the end of the day though one gets judged on results as Ince did.