Finance

[Greatwesternline]

Thing is a one off pardon won't help. At Reading it is now a cultural problem. Sign too many players. Sign too many not very good players. Pay them too much. Repeat.

What makes us think anything will change.

Why did we sign new players in January who did not improve the team, and have therefore not seen much game time. Presumably to keep some commission coming in for our favourite agents so that they still consider us in the next transfer window when we want to sign our next Puskas.

[Hound]

Thing is a one off pardon won't help. At Reading it is now a cultural problem. Sign too many players. Sign too many not very good players. Pay them too much. Repeat.

What makes us think anything will change.

Why did we sign new players in January who did not improve the team, and have therefore not seen much game time. Presumably to keep some commission coming in for our favourite agents so that they still consider us in the next transfer window when we want to sign our next Puskas.

Well no Gourlay is certainly a start. I dont think we are in a terrible position going forward tbh. Be interesting to see what this years accounts would look like, but obvs we've got those years of losses hanging over us still

We'll see what happens after this Covid mess comes to some sort of conclusion

[Greatwesternline]

Thing is a one off pardon won't help. At Reading it is now a cultural problem. Sign too many players. Sign too many not very good players. Pay them too much. Repeat.

What makes us think anything will change.

Why did we sign new players in January who did not improve the team, and have therefore not seen much game time. Presumably to keep some commission coming in for our favourite agents so that they still consider us in the next transfer window when we want to sign our next Puskas.

Well no Gourlay is certainly a start. I dont think we are in a terrible position going forward tbh. Be interesting to see what this years accounts would look like, but obvs we've got those years of losses hanging over us still

We'll see what happens after this Covid mess comes to some sort of conclusion

This year's accounts will look terrible because they will include puskas and ejaria and all the other late Summer signings. We also dont have the sale of the stadium to smooth out losses anymore.

[Hound]

Thing is a one off pardon won't help. At Reading it is now a cultural problem. Sign too many players. Sign too many not very good players. Pay them too much. Repeat.

What makes us think anything will change.

Why did we sign new players in January who did not improve the team, and have therefore not seen much game time. Presumably to keep some commission coming in for our favourite agents so that they still consider us in the next transfer window when we want to sign our next Puskas.

Well no Gourlay is certainly a start. I dont think we are in a terrible position going forward tbh. Be interesting to see what this years accounts would look like, but obvs we've got those years of losses hanging over us still

We'll see what happens after this Covid mess comes to some sort of conclusion

This year's accounts will look terrible because they will include puskas and ejaria and all the other late Summer signings. We also dont have the sale of the stadium to smooth out losses anymore.

Ejaria won't be in there. That was a commitment to pay in next year. Interesting to see how much we paid for Puscas and Joao though.

We did shed a few big wages - Yann, McShane, Joey, Kelly, Aluko (out on loan for some of it). But yeah, guessing they won't be fantastic

[Greatwesternline]

Well no Gourlay is certainly a start. I dont think we are in a terrible position going forward tbh. Be interesting to see what this years accounts would look like, but obvs we've got those years of losses hanging over us still

We'll see what happens after this Covid mess comes to some sort of conclusion

This year's accounts will look terrible because they will include puskas and ejaria and all the other late Summer signings. We also dont have the sale of the stadium to smooth out losses anymore.

Ejaria won't be in there. That was a commitment to pay in next year. Interesting to see how much we paid for Puscas and Joao though.

We did shed a few big wages - Yann, McShane, Joey, Kelly, Aluko (out on loan for some of it). But yeah, guessing they won't be fantastic

Ejaria isn't playing for free, and Liverpool didnt charge a loan fee? Also, as i keep repeating over and over, even if Liverpool say, you can pay for Ejaria's loan fee next year, it would still be an expense in this year's accounts. FFP is not done on a cash basis.

[Hound]

This year's accounts will look terrible because they will include puskas and ejaria and all the other late Summer signings. We also dont have the sale of the stadium to smooth out losses anymore.

Ejaria won't be in there. That was a commitment to pay in next year. Interesting to see how much we paid for Puscas and Joao though.

We did shed a few big wages - Yann, McShane, Joey, Kelly, Aluko (out on loan for some of it). But yeah, guessing they won't be fantastic

Ejaria isn't playing for free, and Liverpool didnt charge a loan fee? Also, as i keep repeating over and over, even if Liverpool say, you can pay for Ejaria's loan fee next year, it would still be an expense in this year's accounts. FFP is not done on a cash basis.

Well there will be wages and maybe a loan fee. But there is a commitment to purchase him on July 1st. Its not that we've bought him now, but are paying later. I'm guessing they are relatively small to the 3.5m we will pay to buy him, and probably less than Rafael, Boye and Pele. So he is still relevant but possibly the cheapest of our biggest signings in terms of this year's accounts. So yes still relevant but not really any more than most of our players

Is that you're understanding or have i missed something there? The whole point I thought of having that commitment was so the transfer fee wouldnt appear in this years accounts. Obvs his wages will

[Greatwesternline]

Ejaria won't be in there. That was a commitment to pay in next year. Interesting to see how much we paid for Puscas and Joao though.

We did shed a few big wages - Yann, McShane, Joey, Kelly, Aluko (out on loan for some of it). But yeah, guessing they won't be fantastic

Ejaria isn't playing for free, and Liverpool didnt charge a loan fee? Also, as i keep repeating over and over, even if Liverpool say, you can pay for Ejaria's loan fee next year, it would still be an expense in this year's accounts. FFP is not done on a cash basis.

Well there will be wages and maybe a loan fee. But there is a commitment to purchase him on July 1st. Its not that we've bought him now, but are paying later. I'm guessing they are relatively small to the 3.5m we will pay to buy him, and probably less than Rafael, Boye and Pele. So he is still relevant but possibly the cheapest of our biggest signings in terms of this year's accounts. So yes still relevant but not really any more than most of our players

Is that you're understanding or have i missed something there? The whole point I thought of having that commitment was so the transfer fee wouldnt appear in this years accounts. Obvs his wages will

I agree, if the agreement can be got out of. If the agreement says you will pay us this much money in the future, then the transfer has already happened.

But you always spread a transfer over the life of the contract. So say we pay £1m loan fee this year, and £3.5m transfer fee in the summer for a 3 year contract,, if there is no option not to buy, it means you would divide 4.5m over 4 years to work out an annual charge.

If we can get out of the transfer, i'm sure we will, as we dont have the money. If we choose to go ahead with the transfer, then whatever that fee is will be divided by how many years contract we give him to work out the charge next year.

[SCIAG]

Thing is a one off pardon won't help. At Reading it is now a cultural problem. Sign too many players. Sign too many not very good players. Pay them too much. Repeat.

What makes us think anything will change.

Why did we sign new players in January who did not improve the team, and have therefore not seen much game time. Presumably to keep some commission coming in for our favourite agents so that they still consider us in the next transfer window when we want to sign our next Puskas.

Presumably we thought that they would improve the squad. They’ve both looked pretty useful. Easy to see how someone might think Masika would improve the disaster that is our left wing, or Araruna (?) might be an upgrade on Yiadom. Masika’s arrival has coincided with Bowen putting more faith in Olise.

So three points:

- Clubs make signings that don’t work out all the time.
- Incompetence is always more likely than malice.
- Your conspiracy theory might end up being partially true, but without evidence there’s no reason to believe it.

[Notts Royal]

Personally I don’t believe the players we signed last summer are on any less than previous signings. You’re telling me Puscas is on less than Baldock? Give over - there must have been some draw for him choosing Reading when the whole of Europe were looking at him.

[Snowflake Royal]

Thing is a one off pardon won't help. At Reading it is now a cultural problem. Sign too many players. Sign too many not very good players. Pay them too much. Repeat.

What makes us think anything will change.

Why did we sign new players in January who did not improve the team, and have therefore not seen much game time. Presumably to keep some commission coming in for our favourite agents so that they still consider us in the next transfer window when we want to sign our next Puskas.

Exactly right. People have been saying we're getting our house in order for the last decade and yet the latest figures show our biggest loss yet.

We were supposed to have shifted loads of dead weight mid-season under Gomes. Yet we lost almost double the amount we spunked under Stam and Gourlay in one season.

It's getting worse, not better. And we're running out of things we can sell to our owners.

[Hound]

Thing is a one off pardon won't help. At Reading it is now a cultural problem. Sign too many players. Sign too many not very good players. Pay them too much. Repeat.

What makes us think anything will change.

Why did we sign new players in January who did not improve the team, and have therefore not seen much game time. Presumably to keep some commission coming in for our favourite agents so that they still consider us in the next transfer window when we want to sign our next Puskas.

Exactly right. People have been saying we're getting our house in order for the last decade and yet the latest figures show our biggest loss yet.

We were supposed to have shifted loads of dead weight mid-season under Gomes. Yet we lost almost double the amount we spunked under Stam and Gourlay in one season.

It's getting worse, not better. And we're running out of things we can sell to our owners.

Players next....

Realistically we'll have to sell some from the sounds of things.

[Ascotexgunner]

Personally Im hoping that Putin will pay a visit to the Russian weasel...….where the hell did the money go? He put *uck all in when we went up.
Then theres the Thai's...I think they did the most damage personally by starting to break the club up and taking assets to make up for their losses. I was worried about the current owners but tbf they have put their money where their mouth is and do have the fans at heart when they try and keep costs down.
Added the above with the crap managerial appointments and endless list of bad buys its fair to say it doesn't surprise me.

One thing that clubs in the EFL have suffered from though is SKY paying over 5 billion for Premier League rights and the EFL getting just 600 million. How is that fair? over one third of Sky viewers watch the efl…...that's a big chunks and the money sums don't add up.

When this virus ends and there is some normality back I cant even get my head around how some clubs are going to survive....even if we finish this season, the next season will be possibly shortened and more revenue lost.....

[Linden Jones' Tash]

The championship reminds me of those Icelandic banks before the financial crash in 2008.

They played with the big boys and ended up with liabilities several orders of magnitude greater than the economy of Iceland itself, so when it all came crashing down, Iceland couldn't bail them out...

Reading FC has traded up from local millionaire makes good, to dodgy son of a Russian supposed Billionaire, to a consortium of real estate investors to Chinese Billionaires.

Unless theres a Gulf State sovereign fund that fancies Reading FC, I'm not sure there's anywhere else to go.

Gotta hope we keep the owners amused for a few more seasons til we make the promised land and get onto a more secure footing, if there's still that kind of money in the Premier league when/if we get there.

[Zip]

Thing is a one off pardon won't help. At Reading it is now a cultural problem. Sign too many players. Sign too many not very good players. Pay them too much. Repeat.

What makes us think anything will change.

Why did we sign new players in January who did not improve the team, and have therefore not seen much game time. Presumably to keep some commission coming in for our favourite agents so that they still consider us in the next transfer window when we want to sign our next Puskas.

January was only one permanent signing. I think we have seen improvements since Howe returned. Last summer’s signings were decent and the loan signings in January 2019 were excellent. The damage has been done in the preceding years which were shambolic.

[bcubed]

The championship reminds me of those Icelandic banks before the financial crash in 2008.

They played with the big boys and ended up with liabilities several orders of magnitude greater than the economy of Iceland itself, so when it all came crashing down, Iceland couldn't bail them out...

Reading FC has traded up from local millionaire makes good, to dodgy son of a Russian supposed Billionaire, to a consortium of real estate investors to Chinese Billionaires.

Unless theres a Gulf State sovereign fund that fancies Reading FC, I'm not sure there's anywhere else to go.

Gotta hope we keep the owners amused for a few more seasons til we make the promised land and get onto a more secure footing, if there's still that kind of money in the Premier league when/if we get there.

I can't see the Premier League money train continuing when all this is over. Surely if there is anything like the economic downturn being predicted crazy wages will have to go.

[Hound]

I’m struggling to find a way in which football - with 60,000 people all together in one place, many elderly - can actually restart properly at all.

Many contracts will expire and clubs won’t be paying big money on new players with no TV or match day income

Best they can prob hope for is restarting behind closed doors and televise the lot.

[Franchise FC]

I’m struggling to find a way in which football - with 60,000 people all together in one place, many elderly - can actually restart properly at all.

Many contracts will expire and clubs won’t be paying big money on new players with no TV or match day income

Best they can prob hope for is restarting behind closed doors and televise the lot.

That's one of the things the big clubs want, though, isn't it ?
The right to 'sell' their own TV coverage for home games

[Snowflake Royal]

Thing is a one off pardon won't help. At Reading it is now a cultural problem. Sign too many players. Sign too many not very good players. Pay them too much. Repeat.

What makes us think anything will change.

Why did we sign new players in January who did not improve the team, and have therefore not seen much game time. Presumably to keep some commission coming in for our favourite agents so that they still consider us in the next transfer window when we want to sign our next Puskas.

January was only one permanent signing. I think we have seen improvements since Howe returned. Last summer’s signings were decent and the loan signings in January 2019 were excellent. The damage has been done in the preceding years which were shambolic.

We just lost £40m in a season Howe was mostly in charge. And in the follow up season didn't lose many players and made some crazy spending.

If 18/19 was £40m, even without corona there's no way 19/20 would be anything other than tens of millions of loss again.

There's a decent chance 18-20 could see us lose double the allowed loss for a full 3 year accounting period under FFP.


Let's not forget the financial mismanagement didn't start with Gourlay. It was happening before Howe left. And it happened under him with Burns too.

[Linden Jones' Tash]

The championship reminds me of those Icelandic banks before the financial crash in 2008.

They played with the big boys and ended up with liabilities several orders of magnitude greater than the economy of Iceland itself, so when it all came crashing down, Iceland couldn't bail them out...

Reading FC has traded up from local millionaire makes good, to dodgy son of a Russian supposed Billionaire, to a consortium of real estate investors to Chinese Billionaires.

Unless theres a Gulf State sovereign fund that fancies Reading FC, I'm not sure there's anywhere else to go.

Gotta hope we keep the owners amused for a few more seasons til we make the promised land and get onto a more secure footing, if there's still that kind of money in the Premier league when/if we get there.

I can't see the Premier League money train continuing when all this is over. Surely if there is anything like the economic downturn being predicted crazy wages will have to go.

I don't disagree. Sadly I'm not hopeful about what comes next given the clowns in charge.

[Zip]

Thing is a one off pardon won't help. At Reading it is now a cultural problem. Sign too many players. Sign too many not very good players. Pay them too much. Repeat.

What makes us think anything will change.

Why did we sign new players in January who did not improve the team, and have therefore not seen much game time. Presumably to keep some commission coming in for our favourite agents so that they still consider us in the next transfer window when we want to sign our next Puskas.

January was only one permanent signing. I think we have seen improvements since Howe returned. Last summer’s signings were decent and the loan signings in January 2019 were excellent. The damage has been done in the preceding years which were shambolic.

We just lost £40m in a season Howe was mostly in charge. And in the follow up season didn't lose many players and made some crazy spending.

If 18/19 was £40m, even without corona there's no way 19/20 would be anything other than tens of millions of loss again.

There's a decent chance 18-20 could see us lose double the allowed loss for a full 3 year accounting period under FFP.


Let's not forget the financial mismanagement didn't start with Gourlay. It was happening before Howe left. And it happened under him with Burns too.

This time around we do have some valuable player assets. Puscas, Swift, Moore and even Ejaria once permanently signed could be sold for good money. It’s been one of our biggest problem in the last few years. We haven’t had anywhere near enough money incoming from player sales. That has to change and starting this summer.