The owners - what went wrong for them

[stealthpapes]

Going back to the no baseline point, how different is

“ 75-25 in favour of ‘yes’”

From

“60-40”

[MartinRdg]

I'm sorry but drawing a result from your poll that 40% of Reading fans do not trust the owners when it's an open poll published on Twitter is not a fact. You cannot determine the demographic of those who voted so cannot logically come to the conclusion you have.

[Brogue]

I'm sorry but drawing a result from your poll that 40% of Reading fans do not trust the owners when it's an open poll published on Twitter is not a fact. You cannot determine the demographic of those who voted so cannot logically come to the conclusion you have.

it's almost as if i posted this in the op

The poll is not a scientific survey, obviously, but with more than 800 votes, it should still give us a reasonable indication of the current mood among the fanbase.

i never said it was fact I said a 'reasonable indication' of the current mood.

It's now about 1000 votes and the percentages have remained the same. Who is voting in the poll then? Why can't I conclude? are you saying the russians have infiltrated the poll on the reading fc hashtag ?

[Sutekh]

I'm sorry but drawing a result from your poll that 40% of Reading fans do not trust the owners when it's an open poll published on Twitter is not a fact. You cannot determine the demographic of those who voted so cannot logically come to the conclusion you have.

it's almost as if i posted this in the op

The poll is not a scientific survey, obviously, but with more than 800 votes, it should still give us a reasonable indication of the current mood among the fanbase.

it's now about 1000 votes nd the percentages have remained the same. Who is voting in the poll then? Why can't I conclude?

If people can't vote more than once and you know they're all Reading FC supporters and not fans of other clubs "having a bit of fun" then you can reasonably conclude, otherwise you need to caveat any conclusions.

[Royal Ginger]

Do we not inherently distrust the owner class? I’m personally surprised it’s that high.

What is considered an appropriate baseline?

[Marcel]

I'm sorry but drawing a result from your poll that 40% of Reading fans do not trust the owners when it's an open poll published on Twitter is not a fact. You cannot determine the demographic of those who voted so cannot logically come to the conclusion you have.

it's almost as if i posted this in the op

The poll is not a scientific survey, obviously, but with more than 800 votes, it should still give us a reasonable indication of the current mood among the fanbase.

i never said it was fact I said a 'reasonable indication' of the current mood.

It's now about 1000 votes and the percentages have remained the same. Who is voting in the poll then? Why can't I conclude? are you saying the russians have infiltrated the poll on the reading fc hashtag ?

Not on twitter but if I was I would vote No purely because they’re Americans

[RG30]

This was a good article published on TTE recently:

https://thetilehurstend.sbnation.com/20 ... -questions

[windermereROYAL]

I don`t think it`s a well kept secret that Brogue hasn`t been a fan of the owners since day one.
Don`t think any debate will change that reasoning.

[blythspartan]

I think part of the problem with the owners is that from the beginning quite a sizeable proportion of the fanbase didn’t want them as they felt Rob had prevented a sale to Platek. I remember the fanbase wanting Dai to win his court case, in part, due to Dellor being Howe’s messenger on BBCRB. Then, if you add in the word “spectacular”, that frustrated a lot of fans once the summer window closed last year.

Personally, I’d prefer honesty, and if the money to strengthen the squad isn’t there just stop all of the bollox about going for promotion. All our squad needs is a bit more depth and I think we’ll have a squeak. I suspect Rob’s tenure will be over before the end of the season.

[Royalwaster]

My own prejudices aside, something has clearly gone wrong for the new owners of Reading Football Club.

I’m currently running a poll on Twitter. It still has another eight hours or so to run, but the results so far are quite astonishing.

Before getting into them, let’s address the inevitable response:

“Yeah, but it’s Twitter. Everyone on there is a frothing-at-the-mouth weirdo.”

There is some truth in that. There are certainly some very vocal negative nellies on there, and I’ll happily admit that I can fall into that category myself at times. However, they are generally a minority who simply shout louder than everyone else. There are also plenty of perfectly reasonable Reading fans on Twitter.

I’d also argue that the Reading FC community on Twitter contains a significant proportion of the supporters who regularly attend matches. The poll is not a scientific survey, obviously, but with more than 800 votes, it should still give us a reasonable indication of the current mood among the fanbase.

Very few Reading-related polls receive that level of engagement, so the subject has clearly struck a nerve.

The question itself was deliberately simple:

“Do you trust the owners?”

The only options were yes or no. There was no additional context or leading commentary that might influence the result.

As of midday, 837 votes had been cast, and 40% of respondents said they did not trust the owners... 40%?

I find that astonishing. When I posted the poll, I didn’t think for a second that the number voting no would be anywhere near that high.

So what has gone wrong?

You would imagine that almost anyone replacing Dai Yongge would receive an extended honeymoon period. The bar could hardly have been lower. Yet, despite that, after just over a year in charge, four out of every ten people responding to the poll already say they do not trust the new owners.

Regardless of whether the final figure moves slightly before the poll closes, that should concern them. To have lost the trust of such a sizeable section of the fanbase this quickly suggests that something has gone badly wrong.

Sounds like a completely unbiased survey. A bit like Reform running a survey asking if you trust the government on immigration.

[andrew1957]

In my opinion the owners still have a lot of credit in the bank for saving the club. It could have been so much worse.

Having said this, I do think this summer's transfer business is a tad disappointing so far. The not so good news is that the squad looks a little weaker this season as compared to when the transfer window closed last season - but there might of course be more signings to come. If not - then our season will depend on the injury list. If we have a good season with few injuries, then we have an outside chance of top 6. But if we have a repeat of the last few seasons, with multiple injuries throughout the season, this squad is unlikely to be deep enough to cope well and we will end mid table at best.

The better news is that we have had a more settled pre season this time round. Last summer was a shambles and so it was no surprise we started poorly. This time we have had a good and settled pre season.

The owners are not going to spunk millions - which is fair enough - but this does mean there is a real risk of us turning into a lower League 1 - top League 2 level club rather than pushing towards the Championship.

[Extended-Phenotype]

My own prejudices aside, something has clearly gone wrong for the new owners of Reading Football Club.

I’m currently running a poll on Twitter. It still has another eight hours or so to run, but the results so far are quite astonishing.

Before getting into them, let’s address the inevitable response:

“Yeah, but it’s Twitter. Everyone on there is a frothing-at-the-mouth weirdo.”

There is some truth in that. There are certainly some very vocal negative nellies on there, and I’ll happily admit that I can fall into that category myself at times.

Mate, you outright stoke it. Your Twitter persona is not far from the right wing rage-baiting propaganda bots on there. It’s the act of an imbecile to be astonished by the idiocy they helped manufacture, and If there were fewer trolls getting off on creating hysteria on social media, there would be far fewer problems in the world.

I’d also argue that the Reading FC community on Twitter contains a significant proportion of the supporters who regularly attend matches. The poll is not a scientific survey, obviously, but with more than 800 votes, it should still give us a reasonable indication of the current mood among the fanbase.

Twitter is a distorted, highly exaggerated and grotesque caricature of the real world. It rarely matters how many “real” people are on there, their voices will always be dragged into the extremes. Thats how the algorithm works.

The question itself was deliberately simple:

“Do you trust the owners?”

The only options were yes or no. There was no additional context or leading commentary that might influence the result.

It’s a well established fact that the source of a question has just as much influence on the results as the manner in which it is asked. Your whiny, baiting, troll account asking “do you trust the owners?” answers itself in the context of its environment.

As of midday, 837 votes had been cast, and 40% of respondents said they did not trust the owners... 40%?

Shrug. So what, circa 300 people on a highly charged froth-pool of warped fvcktards riled up by a bored alter-ego shitposting for attention don’t trust the owners? I bet you could ask “is it okay to drink your own piss?” and get similar results.

So what has gone wrong?

Plenty of things, as things do. That’s why management exists - to navigate problems - else stuff would just magically work on its own. The more pertinent question is, how well have the problems been managed? I’d hazard a guess problems are managed better further up the food chain, and we should realistically except a bit of hit and miss at this level.

You would imagine that almost anyone replacing Dai Yongge would receive an extended honeymoon period. The bar could hardly have been lower. Yet, despite that, after just over a year in charge, four out of every ten people responding to the poll already say they do not trust the new owners.

4/10 Twitter users. And let’s not pretend our fanbase is in any way a virtue of patience and long memory.

Regardless of whether the final figure moves slightly before the poll closes, that should concern them. To have lost the trust of such a sizeable section of the fanbase this quickly suggests that something has gone badly wrong.

I wouldn’t overinflate the significance of your poll or the answers from those that bothered to respond to the clearly leading question within the context of the account that presented it. But to attempt to squeeze something drinkable from this fruitless OP, what have been the owners missteps and why might that have resulted in fan frustration?

Ultimately it’s a lack of signings in S1, and running out of steam with signings this summer. From the fans perspective, there is visible spending, and invisible spending. With football club operation shrouded in secrecy, and the average fan’s limited understanding of business management, owners are only ever seen to be spending money on players. And people know next to oxf*rd all about how that works as well. In this vacuum of knowledge, all it really takes is a few loud voices stirring up rumours of lowball offers, or stubborn refusals, or mismanaged deals, and a lack of signings quickly translates into tight owners being cvnts. But that’s nothing new. In fact, the only time I can remember fans not mewling about owners spending, was the Dai era. Think about that.

The comms are also likely to blame, but I’m not really surprised the noise from the owners oversold our potential. I AM surprised they bothered saying much at all. Because to expect understanding and sympathy from the online fanbase is probably their biggest crime. What you say on social media will come back to bite you on the arse; you can’t unsay it, it’s easily found, and despite our devolving attention spans it will not be forgotten. Perhaps a lesson for Twitter trolls too.

[Brogue]

My own prejudices aside, something has clearly gone wrong for the new owners of Reading Football Club.

I’m currently running a poll on Twitter. It still has another eight hours or so to run, but the results so far are quite astonishing.

Before getting into them, let’s address the inevitable response:

“Yeah, but it’s Twitter. Everyone on there is a frothing-at-the-mouth weirdo.”

There is some truth in that. There are certainly some very vocal negative nellies on there, and I’ll happily admit that I can fall into that category myself at times.

Mate, you outright stoke it. Your Twitter persona is not far from the right wing rage-baiting propaganda bots on there. It’s the act of an imbecile to be astonished by the idiocy they helped manufacture, and If there were fewer trolls getting off on creating hysteria on social media, there would be far fewer problems in the world.

I’d also argue that the Reading FC community on Twitter contains a significant proportion of the supporters who regularly attend matches. The poll is not a scientific survey, obviously, but with more than 800 votes, it should still give us a reasonable indication of the current mood among the fanbase.

Twitter is a distorted, highly exaggerated and grotesque caricature of the real world. It rarely matters how many “real” people are on there, their voices will always be dragged into the extremes. Thats how the algorithm works.

The question itself was deliberately simple:

“Do you trust the owners?”

The only options were yes or no. There was no additional context or leading commentary that might influence the result.

It’s a well established fact that the source of a question has just as much influence on the results as the manner in which it is asked. Your whiny, baiting, troll account asking “do you trust the owners?” answers itself in the context of its environment.

As of midday, 837 votes had been cast, and 40% of respondents said they did not trust the owners... 40%?

Shrug. So what, circa 300 people on a highly charged froth-pool of warped fvcktards riled up by a bored alter-ego shitposting for attention don’t trust the owners? I bet you could ask “is it okay to drink your own piss?” and get similar results.

So what has gone wrong?

Plenty of things, as things do. That’s why management exists - to navigate problems - else stuff would just magically work on its own. The more pertinent question is, how well have the problems been managed? I’d hazard a guess problems are managed better further up the food chain, and we should realistically except a bit of hit and miss at this level.

You would imagine that almost anyone replacing Dai Yongge would receive an extended honeymoon period. The bar could hardly have been lower. Yet, despite that, after just over a year in charge, four out of every ten people responding to the poll already say they do not trust the new owners.

4/10 Twitter users. And let’s not pretend our fanbase is in any way a virtue of patience and long memory.

Regardless of whether the final figure moves slightly before the poll closes, that should concern them. To have lost the trust of such a sizeable section of the fanbase this quickly suggests that something has gone badly wrong.

I wouldn’t overinflate the significance of your poll or the answers from those that bothered to respond to the clearly leading question within the context of the account that presented it. But to attempt to squeeze something drinkable from this fruitless OP, what have been the owners missteps and why might that have resulted in fan frustration?

Ultimately it’s a lack of signings in S1, and running out of steam with signings this summer. From the fans perspective, there is visible spending, and invisible spending. With football club operation shrouded in secrecy, and the average fan’s limited understanding of business management, owners are only ever seen to be spending money on players. And people know next to oxf*rd all about how that works as well. In this vacuum of knowledge, all it really takes is a few loud voices stirring up rumours of lowball offers, or stubborn refusals, or mismanaged deals, and a lack of signings quickly translates into tight owners being cvnts. But that’s nothing new. In fact, the only time I can remember fans not mewling about owners spending, was the Dai era. Think about that.

The comms are also likely to blame, but I’m not really surprised the noise from the owners oversold our potential. I AM surprised they bothered saying much at all. Because to expect understanding and sympathy from the online fanbase is probably their biggest crime. What you say on social media will come back to bite you on the arse; you can’t unsay it, it’s easily found, and despite our devolving attention spans it will not be forgotten. Perhaps a lesson for Twitter trolls too.

Harsh. I just hold the club to account because in the expectations set by them. We have a situation where by the manager is saying yesterday.l, and I quote:

“It’s obvious we need more depth, we’re way off - a little bit of that…’’

He said after Kelvin left he wanted another 4 or 5.

The CEO does an interview saying in interviews this week that the gaps will be plugged by youngsters and our transfer market plans have changed.

We have the owners coming out and saying promotion promotion promotion. The assistant manger saying the only reason he joined is because he was told this club is pushing for promotion.

The season starts tomorrow. And we have one senior striker at the club. In marriot. We’ve signed 4 players this summer. Less than any other club in the league (other than Oxford who are under an embargo) and 12 ish can’t remember now players out.

All I do is hold the club to account on the words that they say.

I also have inside knowledge on stuff going on in the background. Players missed out on cos of low balling offers. Agents refusing to work with us because we oxf*rd them around. Toxic atmosphere amongst the staff.

Oh and for the record I can be fair and reasoned and stick up for the owners. As here



Im not a troll I don’t stoke shit up. I simply hold the club to account on the expectation set by them. Don’t come out with this constant talk of promotion when you have only signed 4 players and have a manger saying we are way off where we need to be as a club. Don’t come out with constant talk of promotion when we have 2 senior centre back and one senior striker at the club.

And to completely dismiss the poll of 1000 people as just everyone on twitter is a pcunt is completely disingenuous naive and frankly weird. Dismiss it all you want be nearly half of all fans that voted don't trust the owners. If the tilehurst end had run the poll you wouldn’t be saying any of the above.

[Sutekh]

Well it sounds like great news if you’re a leading Academy kid doesn’t it? However Patton is injured and the club let Evans go to Bedford on loan so just what exactly is Leam meant to do with front line where the only striker is seemingly made of bubbles and the other one was flogged off for what could be as little as £650k (in installments).

While both the aforementioned youngsters seem to be useful, asking them to possibly lead the line in a promotion chasing third tier team is utterly absurd. So it seems that despite all the investment that’s been attracted to the club we’re little better off than we were a year ago.

Think it might well be a long long season for everyone with players and management being asked to deliver above and beyond game after game week after week.

Isn’t Rob doing a Q&A at the fan store this PM or something? Wonder if there’ll be any pointed questions from fans about the state of things?

Oh and the senior player turnover so far this window is..

IN
Malife
Stokes
Brown
Lisbie

OUT
Ritchie
Ehibhatiomhan
Yiadom
Camara
Stickland
Elliott
Rushesha

+ the loanees
Burns
Doyle
Jacob
O’Mahony
Keane
Nyambe
Young

Net matchday loss of 6 players (10 if you count MOM (occasional bench warmer at best), Jacob (gone in Jan), Rushesha (rarely seen) and Elliott (injured) - and we lacked depth last season

[Stranded]

My own prejudices aside, something has clearly gone wrong for the new owners of Reading Football Club.

I’m currently running a poll on Twitter. It still has another eight hours or so to run, but the results so far are quite astonishing.

Before getting into them, let’s address the inevitable response:

“Yeah, but it’s Twitter. Everyone on there is a frothing-at-the-mouth weirdo.”

There is some truth in that. There are certainly some very vocal negative nellies on there, and I’ll happily admit that I can fall into that category myself at times.

Mate, you outright stoke it. Your Twitter persona is not far from the right wing rage-baiting propaganda bots on there. It’s the act of an imbecile to be astonished by the idiocy they helped manufacture, and If there were fewer trolls getting off on creating hysteria on social media, there would be far fewer problems in the world.

I’d also argue that the Reading FC community on Twitter contains a significant proportion of the supporters who regularly attend matches. The poll is not a scientific survey, obviously, but with more than 800 votes, it should still give us a reasonable indication of the current mood among the fanbase.

Twitter is a distorted, highly exaggerated and grotesque caricature of the real world. It rarely matters how many “real” people are on there, their voices will always be dragged into the extremes. Thats how the algorithm works.

The question itself was deliberately simple:

“Do you trust the owners?”

The only options were yes or no. There was no additional context or leading commentary that might influence the result.

It’s a well established fact that the source of a question has just as much influence on the results as the manner in which it is asked. Your whiny, baiting, troll account asking “do you trust the owners?” answers itself in the context of its environment.

As of midday, 837 votes had been cast, and 40% of respondents said they did not trust the owners... 40%?

Shrug. So what, circa 300 people on a highly charged froth-pool of warped fvcktards riled up by a bored alter-ego shitposting for attention don’t trust the owners? I bet you could ask “is it okay to drink your own piss?” and get similar results.

So what has gone wrong?

Plenty of things, as things do. That’s why management exists - to navigate problems - else stuff would just magically work on its own. The more pertinent question is, how well have the problems been managed? I’d hazard a guess problems are managed better further up the food chain, and we should realistically except a bit of hit and miss at this level.

You would imagine that almost anyone replacing Dai Yongge would receive an extended honeymoon period. The bar could hardly have been lower. Yet, despite that, after just over a year in charge, four out of every ten people responding to the poll already say they do not trust the new owners.

4/10 Twitter users. And let’s not pretend our fanbase is in any way a virtue of patience and long memory.

Regardless of whether the final figure moves slightly before the poll closes, that should concern them. To have lost the trust of such a sizeable section of the fanbase this quickly suggests that something has gone badly wrong.

I wouldn’t overinflate the significance of your poll or the answers from those that bothered to respond to the clearly leading question within the context of the account that presented it. But to attempt to squeeze something drinkable from this fruitless OP, what have been the owners missteps and why might that have resulted in fan frustration?

Ultimately it’s a lack of signings in S1, and running out of steam with signings this summer. From the fans perspective, there is visible spending, and invisible spending. With football club operation shrouded in secrecy, and the average fan’s limited understanding of business management, owners are only ever seen to be spending money on players. And people know next to oxf*rd all about how that works as well. In this vacuum of knowledge, all it really takes is a few loud voices stirring up rumours of lowball offers, or stubborn refusals, or mismanaged deals, and a lack of signings quickly translates into tight owners being cvnts. But that’s nothing new. In fact, the only time I can remember fans not mewling about owners spending, was the Dai era. Think about that.

The comms are also likely to blame, but I’m not really surprised the noise from the owners oversold our potential. I AM surprised they bothered saying much at all. Because to expect understanding and sympathy from the online fanbase is probably their biggest crime. What you say on social media will come back to bite you on the arse; you can’t unsay it, it’s easily found, and despite our devolving attention spans it will not be forgotten. Perhaps a lesson for Twitter trolls too.

Harsh. I just hold the club to account because in the expectations set by them. We have a situation where by the manager is saying yesterday.l, and I quote:

“It’s obvious we need more depth, we’re way off - a little bit of that…’’

He said after Kelvin left he wanted another 4 or 5.

The CEO does an interview saying in interviews this week that the gaps will be plugged by youngsters and our transfer market plans have changed.

We have the owners coming out and saying promotion promotion promotion. The assistant manger saying the only reason he joined is because he was told this club is pushing for promotion.

The season starts tomorrow. And we have one senior striker at the club. In marriot. We’ve signed 4 players this summer. Less than any other club in the league (other than Oxford who are under an embargo) and 12 ish can’t remember now players out.

All I do is hold the club to account on the words that they say.

I also have inside knowledge on stuff going on in the background. Players missed out on cos of low balling offers. Agents refusing to work with us because we oxf*rd them around. Toxic atmosphere amongst the staff.

Oh and for the record I can be fair and reasoned and stick up for the owners. As here



Im not a troll I don’t stoke shit up. I simply hold the club to account on the expectation set by them. Don’t come out with this constant talk of promotion when you have only signed 4 players and have a manger saying we are way off where we need to be as a club. Don’t come out with constant talk of promotion when we have 2 senior centre back and one senior striker at the club.

And to completely dismiss the poll of 1000 people as just everyone on twitter is a pcunt is completely disingenuous naive and frankly weird. Dismiss it all you want be nearly half of all fans that voted don't trust the owners. If the tilehurst end had run the poll you wouldn’t be saying any of the above.

Are you talking about the interview GHR posted on SM? If so that is not a fair reflection of what he said - I actually had to go back and re-listen.

He said that they identified some players they really wanted and got those done. He then said, things change, players leave or get injured and that "shuffles your plans around". He then mentions that as seen this pre-season, you may actually have some youth who could "possibly" fill gaps - not will - but that they have bids in for "quality players" currently.

Now we all know that those bids may not come off but if you want to hold the club to account on the words they use - which is a noble task and one I frankly couldn't be arsed to do, so thanks - it's fairly important to hold them to account to the words and phrases used not your reading of them.

[Hound]

We absolutely need a striker. Maybe we had to sell Kelvin for finances but he needs replacing. Cannot be relying on an injury prone Marriott under any circumstances if we want a good season

But otherwise I think we’re in decent shape. As someone who banged the drum for academy players last year I’d have no issue at all with Osho, Duah, Beacroft, Ahmed etc being a bit part of the season. In fact I’d be delighted

As it is, except the CF position we can put out two good elevens

Anyway we’ll get loans in no doubts. We’ve only used 1 so far, plenty of time to get more in for cover

[WestYorksRoyal]

I don't agree with comparing numbers with last season. We had depth last season and we chose not to use it as the players weren't good enough. So saying our headcount is lower because we haven't replaced the likes of MOM, Camara, Rushesha and Stickland is an unserious argument made by unserious people.

Realistically, a good squad has a maximum of 25 players, but we're not Man City competing for 4 trophies, so maybe even 23 or so is sufficient. That would include a 3rd choice keeper, and a 3 or so outfield players right on the fringe who should also come from the academy.

So you want 20 or 21 players with the required quality/experience to make a real impact. From the graphic widely shared, we have 17. So that would mean a minimum of 3 signings to bolster, which is really not that much, especially when TDD always delivers a lot of shakers and movers. It may be that Millwall sell Azeez late in August and we can move after that, but lower down the food chain there is always an element of following the agenda rather than setting it. That's why so much happens close to the deadline.

Ultimately we brought in 4 good signings early for pre season and have a chance to bolster still. We will hit the ground running with a known starting XI and bench options this season; if depth hurts us, that'll come later when the fixtures start piling up, which won't happen in August.

This summer has every chance of being a successful summer.

[Forbury Lion]

In terms of trust in the owners, Since I first started to show any interest in who the owners were this is how I rank them:

1. Sir John Madejski (1990-2012) - most trustworthy, very honest about everything. As much a man of his word as anyone could be. The only blot on his record is choosing to sell 51% of the club to a Russian oligarch who had no money tarnishing his legacy (and putting the resell price of his 49% at risk!). He did return briefly to try and fix things. 9.5/10

2. Redwood Holdings / Rob Couhig & Todd Trosclair (2025–Present) - I trust them to run the business the right way, That may not translate to what we the fans want to see on the pitch but they are setting realistic expectations, seem to have a plan and a proven track record. 7/10, with potential to climb (or fall)

3. The Thai Consortium (2014–2017) they meant well, Lady Sasima Srivikorn doesn't just write songs like "They Call Us The Royals" for any old business investment you know. I don't think they sold the club to the Dai familly expecting them to almost destroy the club, but at the same time I don't think that would have stopped them as the sale turned into a business transaction with the car park being kept for development (was that their plan from the very begining?)... although Royal Elm Park might be a no-go due to the AWE zone being extended. Might be good for the club if they want to buy it back on the cheap. 6/10

4. Anton Zingarevich (2012–2014) Not last because there has been no owner worse than Dai Yongge and the club didn't fall so far nor come so close to extinction under his stewardship. 3/10

5. The Dai Family Era (2017–2025) Nothing more to say on this matter, Couldn't trust a word from anyone associated with him and nor could those doing business with him. 0/10

[Orion1871]

In terms of trust in the owners, Since I first started to show any interest in who the owners were this is how I rank them:

1. Sir John Madejski (1990-2012) - most trustworthy, very honest about everything. As much a man of his word as anyone could be. The only blot on his record is choosing to sell 51% of the club to a Russian oligarch who had no money tarnishing his legacy (and putting the resell price of his 49% at risk!). He did return briefly to try and fix things. 9.5/10

2. Redwood Holdings / Rob Couhig & Todd Trosclair (2025–Present) - I trust them to run the business the right way, That may not translate to what we the fans want to see on the pitch but they are setting realistic expectations, seem to have a plan and a proven track record. 7/10, with potential to climb (or fall)

3. The Thai Consortium (2014–2017) they meant well, Lady Sasima Srivikorn doesn't just write songs like "They Call Us The Royals" for any old business investment you know. I don't think they sold the club to the Dai familly expecting them to almost destroy the club, but at the same time I don't think that would have stopped them as the sale turned into a business transaction with the car park being kept for development (was that their plan from the very begining?)... although Royal Elm Park might be a no-go due to the AWE zone being extended. Might be good for the club if they want to buy it back on the cheap. 6/10

4. Anton Zingarevich (2012–2014) Not last because there has been no owner worse than Dai Yongge and the club didn't fall so far nor come so close to extinction under his stewardship. 3/10

5. The Dai Family Era (2017–2025) Nothing more to say on this matter, Couldn't trust a word from anyone associated with him and nor could those doing business with him. 0/10

Did they? Made off with the hotel and the car park,which apparently put a few potential owners off when Dai wanted to sell, prolonging the issue.

I think they got exactly what they wanted from the club.

[WestYorksRoyal]

I'd give the Thais 5/10 but agree they didn't so a bad job. They sold the club to Dai in reasonable health; we made a profit in their last season, but parachute payments were due to end so the Dais should have confronted difficult decisions on how to allow for that. They also left us with a couple of saleable assets like Moore and Swift. I won't go into what happened next.