TAKEOVER *NOT* CONFIMRED

[windermereROYAL]

I don`t read anything over 4 paragraphs so try to keep it easy reading.

[From Despair To Where?]

Interesting read for those people who thought Friday night's demo at Wycombe was a wasted effort https://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/sport/24200475.reading-fc-protest-a-reason-behind-bearwood-pull/

I'm confident the planning permission was front and centre with Dai's bullshit 2nd.

Yeah, it's a handy excuse when you, a lawyer, don't read the planning document properly.

He's just trying too throw some shade back on us to cover up his own shortcomings

[Sutekh]

So would being owned by a hedge fund organisation be a good thing (other than just "not being Dai")?

[WestYorksRoyal]

So would being owned by a hedge fund organisation be a good thing (other than just "not being Dai")?

If they're a fund, they'll be looking to make a return on us. The price of football podcast suggested 5 - 7 years is their typical life cycle.

A great example is Ipswich who were bought out by a fund in L1 and will now be worth much more. A bad example on a bigger scale are Chelsea, where Todd Boehly is using his backers millions to play fantasy football. It's embarrassing for them now, but arguable worse is to come when their investors become frustrated by the lack of return. Then there is 777 trying to take over Everton which I won't go into.

So it's literally impossible to tell. We could have savvy people trying to improve our value, or wide boys who have conned investors and enjoy the prestige of running a football club. The one advantage of L1 is that there isn't much prestige involved.

[Hound]

Yes this is quite correct. Perhaps if the management had known what are they were doing and hadn't been playing random number formations this club might have been on the fringes of the play offs now. Apparently Reading would be 8th in the table if the season had started 20 games ago.

Much as I think Selles got a lot wrong we were, once again, putting together a team of strangers.
A fair few high profile managers have struggled to get a load of new players to gel quickly

But then some managers wouldn't have tried confusing young and inexperienced players who aren't world class internationals with a load of ridiculous "trendy" formation ideas either. They would have tried to make the best with what they had available suitable for the level they were playing at.

Don’t think we’re playing massively different formation wise than we were- Knibbs is basically up top with Smith, behind and wider are Azeez/Mukairo or Kelv and Savage and Wing are the more defensive 2. He’s just changed the distance between players

Players have got fitter, they know the system better and the personnel are better

[Sutekh]

So would being owned by a hedge fund organisation be a good thing (other than just "not being Dai")?

If they're a fund, they'll be looking to make a return on us. The price of football podcast suggested 5 - 7 years is their typical life cycle.

A great example is Ipswich who were bought out by a fund in L1 and will now be worth much more. A bad example on a bigger scale are Chelsea, where Todd Boehly is using his backers millions to play fantasy football. It's embarrassing for them now, but arguable worse is to come when their investors become frustrated by the lack of return. Then there is 777 trying to take over Everton which I won't go into.

So it's literally impossible to tell. We could have savvy people trying to improve our value, or wide boys who have conned investors and enjoy the prestige of running a football club. The one advantage of L1 is that there isn't much prestige involved.

Thanks. For the record this is what the Chronic said about who Genevra are back in November...

https://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/spor ... ssociates/

[Mr Angry]

So would being owned by a hedge fund organisation be a good thing (other than just "not being Dai")?

Being owned by anyone other than Dai can only be a good thing; obviously, if we get bought by someone (or some organisation) and they continually fail to pay HMRC, pay bills or pay wages, who look to asset strip the club of its value and take us to the very brink of extinction, then maybe we can say "with hindsight, these new owners are as bad as Dai", but short of using the stadium to launch anthrax at orphans and puppies, I fail to see how any new owners could be WORSE than being owned by Dai.

[Greatwesternline]

So would being owned by a hedge fund organisation be a good thing (other than just "not being Dai")?

Being owned by anyone other than Dai can only be a good thing; obviously, if we get bought by someone (or some organisation) and they continually fail to pay HMRC, pay bills or pay wages, who look to asset strip the club of its value and take us to the very brink of extinction, then maybe we can say "with hindsight, these new owners are as bad as Dai", but short of using the stadium to launch anthrax at orphans and puppies, I fail to see how any new owners could be WORSE than being owned by Dai.

They could make the same sort of awful signing as Dai, and similarly waste a load of money, but without spending any money on the Academy and let it wither away.

The record of Dai is

Negatives = Terrible footballing decisions at every turn.

Positives = He funded us a sick arse academy.


You could have someone who has the negatives of Dai without the positives...

How good an owner is largely depends on what happens to the club when the owner wants out. Up until then, many of them are much alike. But when the funds run out or interest wanes, that's when you really find out whether you had a good one or not.

[WestYorksRoyal]

So would being owned by a hedge fund organisation be a good thing (other than just "not being Dai")?

Being owned by anyone other than Dai can only be a good thing; obviously, if we get bought by someone (or some organisation) and they continually fail to pay HMRC, pay bills or pay wages, who look to asset strip the club of its value and take us to the very brink of extinction, then maybe we can say "with hindsight, these new owners are as bad as Dai", but short of using the stadium to launch anthrax at orphans and puppies, I fail to see how any new owners could be WORSE than being owned by Dai.

They could make the same sort of awful signing as Dai, and similarly waste a load of money, but without spending any money on the Academy and let it wither away.

The record of Dai is

Negatives = Terrible footballing decisions at every turn.

Positives = He funded us a sick arse academy.


You could have someone who has the negatives of Dai without the positives...

How good an owner is largely depends on what happens to the club when the owner wants out. Up until then, many of them are much alike. But when the funds run out or interest wanes, that's when you really find out whether you had a good one or not.

Negative is he threatened our existence for the first time in 40 years, and the threat is still there. That's pretty fcuking awful, and all other positives and negatives pale in comparison.

[Greatwesternline]

Being owned by anyone other than Dai can only be a good thing; obviously, if we get bought by someone (or some organisation) and they continually fail to pay HMRC, pay bills or pay wages, who look to asset strip the club of its value and take us to the very brink of extinction, then maybe we can say "with hindsight, these new owners are as bad as Dai", but short of using the stadium to launch anthrax at orphans and puppies, I fail to see how any new owners could be WORSE than being owned by Dai.

They could make the same sort of awful signing as Dai, and similarly waste a load of money, but without spending any money on the Academy and let it wither away.

The record of Dai is

Negatives = Terrible footballing decisions at every turn.

Positives = He funded us a sick arse academy.


You could have someone who has the negatives of Dai without the positives...

How good an owner is largely depends on what happens to the club when the owner wants out. Up until then, many of them are much alike. But when the funds run out or interest wanes, that's when you really find out whether you had a good one or not.

Negative is he threatened our existence for the first time in 40 years, and the threat is still there. That's pretty fcuking awful, and all other positives and negatives pale in comparison.

Yup. Which is what i mean buy what really matters is how they behave when they want out. The great thing about Madejski was he kept the whole thing on the road for years and years while publicly saying he wanted out. You can't guarantee that for anyone else.

[WestYorksRoyal]

I am starting to wonder if this is all too late to keep the current team together and we'll have another rebuild next season. If a deal completes in May, it will be after the season ends and the new owners won't have a chance to make their mark or convince staff and players that their future lies here.

Obviously we have some key players on longer term deals, and I can't imagine the likes of Smith, Knibbs, Wing and Savage throwing their toys out of the pram, so we wouldn't be at ground zero. But we could well be looking for another new manager if Selles walks at the end of the season with his stock high, plus the likes of Azeez, Dorsett, Craig and Mola could walk.

We'd get an early chance to see how the new guys go about appointments and recruitment for better or worse.

[blythspartan]

Being owned by anyone other than Dai can only be a good thing; obviously, if we get bought by someone (or some organisation) and they continually fail to pay HMRC, pay bills or pay wages, who look to asset strip the club of its value and take us to the very brink of extinction, then maybe we can say "with hindsight, these new owners are as bad as Dai", but short of using the stadium to launch anthrax at orphans and puppies, I fail to see how any new owners could be WORSE than being owned by Dai.

They could make the same sort of awful signing as Dai, and similarly waste a load of money, but without spending any money on the Academy and let it wither away.

The record of Dai is

Negatives = Terrible footballing decisions at every turn.

Positives = He funded us a sick arse academy.


You could have someone who has the negatives of Dai without the positives...

How good an owner is largely depends on what happens to the club when the owner wants out. Up until then, many of them are much alike. But when the funds run out or interest wanes, that's when you really find out whether you had a good one or not.

Negative is he threatened our existence for the first time in 40 years, and the threat is still there. That's pretty fcuking awful, and all other positives and negatives pale in comparison.

As much as I hate what Dai has done to our club in a parallel universe he could have gone on to be the greatest owner we’d ever had. I still think a positive about him was that he kept the club going through COVID and I don’t remember there being any redundancies during that period.

[SCIAG]

Dai basically made two mistakes, but they're both pretty bad.

1) Put too much of his own money into the squad rather than follow the profit and sustainability rules (which would probably have led to better recruitment), ultimately forcing us to work under EFL sanctions for years on end.

2) Ran out of liquidity.

Other than that, he helped fund the training ground, he kept ticket prices at far below the market rate, and he subsidised away travel.

It's been said to death but if he sells Moore and doesn't sign Aluko and Puscas (combined with generally more sensible recruitment and retention) then we wouldn't be in this mess. Although if Dai ran out of money when we were in the Championship we'd have been in a bigger mess so maybe that's not a great line of argument.

[Snowflake Royal]

Dai basically made two mistakes, but they're both pretty bad.

1) Put too much of his own money into the squad rather than follow the profit and sustainability rules (which would probably have led to better recruitment), ultimately forcing us to work under EFL sanctions for years on end.

2) Ran out of liquidity.

Other than that, he helped fund the training ground, he kept ticket prices at far below the market rate, and he subsidised away travel.

It's been said to death but if he sells Moore and doesn't sign Aluko and Puscas (combined with generally more sensible recruitment and retention) then we wouldn't be in this mess. Although if Dai ran out of money when we were in the Championship we'd have been in a bigger mess so maybe that's not a great line of argument.

Those small changes only swing it to about £160m lost in 6 years, from £190m. Not enough to prevent the mess, just delay it

[WestYorksRoyal]

Dai basically made two mistakes, but they're both pretty bad.

1) Put too much of his own money into the squad rather than follow the profit and sustainability rules (which would probably have led to better recruitment), ultimately forcing us to work under EFL sanctions for years on end.

2) Ran out of liquidity.

Other than that, he helped fund the training ground, he kept ticket prices at far below the market rate, and he subsidised away travel.

It's been said to death but if he sells Moore and doesn't sign Aluko and Puscas (combined with generally more sensible recruitment and retention) then we wouldn't be in this mess. Although if Dai ran out of money when we were in the Championship we'd have been in a bigger mess so maybe that's not a great line of argument.

Those small changes only swing it to about £160m lost in 6 years, from £190m. Not enough to prevent the mess, just delay it

The fundamentals were so wrong that individual decisions or details would not have made a big difference. Just imagine if we beat Huddersfield at Wembley, it would have been the same mistakes on steroids. At least our issues now are of a size that the likes of SCL can help us out. What if we were dealing with a £5m monthly shortfall instead of £1m?

[blythspartan]

I think this is a good read about the current takeover situation.
https://t.co/yH2RDpcaXu

[Pepe the Horseman]

Marc Bircham and friends out of the running according to itk Eddie.

[MouldyRoyal]

Feels like we are down to the final option then

[WestYorksRoyal]

So 2 parties left, one of which is reported to be Genevra. The other will either be Chiron Sports Group or the Minnesota Vikings guys.

Eddie reporting Sports.com walked because they didn't want to put in a deposit to cover the shortfall while Dai still had the power to pull the plug. Perfectly rational decision given who they're negotiating with.

Positive and negative spins available. The remaining parties must really want us to take such a risk covering the shortfall (good). They must be total idiots to want to buy a club in such a mess and dance to Dai's tune (bad).

Can't get away from what that Mike Gow guy said about the Chinese way of doing business. In the West we like to look at valuation models, balance sheets etc., and agree a fair price. It's subjective but ultimately people playing the same game. In Dai's culture, there is only one Reading FC and he owns it. If anyone else wants it, they have to pay what Dai thinks it's worth, and if they want it that badly he'll use that as leverage. It's no wonder the sale is so difficult.

[SouthDownsRoyal]

I 5hink we all know by know how this will almost certainly play out now.