I suppose there are a number of things that will never add up as with any separation of parties. Rob did the 'it's not you, it's me, I just want to be single' speech. And turns up with someone else down the road.
So our perception that Rob had run out of gas was wrong, or he had ran out of resource to take us any further was also wrong. But of these perceptions were either inferred or stated.
I am hoping all of this is just a coincidence of timing. Our enquiry to Reading re the ground opened doors and eyes.
It will be interesting when the documentary about US football owners in England comes out. Haven't heard anything else about that since Wembley.
I haven't been able to find much about how Lomtadze's plan has gone down in Kazakhstan save for a short paragraph in an obscure magazine stating that the general reaction seems to be "Wouldn't it be simpler to spend his money here instead of buying a small British club?"
When you have that much money I would be surprised if he even knew or remembered he had bought a team in Buckinghamshire. Which was my biggest concern. He can afford to spaff away a few million of petty cash with no emotional engagement and not even worry. Rob's level of wealth ensured that he was engaged as he wanted it to be a success as he needed it to be a success.
Once Rob completes the purchase of Reading, how easy is it for him and his "friend" Lomtadze to merge the two clubs? The merged club would have a world class training facility in Bearwood, a 24,000 capacity stadium (which could be increased) and a larger catchment area. The chances of achieving Premier League status would be enhanced with the possibility of a new larger stadium being built. I can't see it happening but would it be possible?
Who knows what will happen but with these wild theories about Reading and merging etc . Could Wycombe be the development club for Reading ? hope not but with all these new owners they don’t exactly work on the same traditional mindset.
But what would be the point of merging Wycombe & Reading, other than to piss off two sets of football supporters. It doesn't make any sort of sense.
Wycombe fans aren't going to support it when we would have a phoenix club playing at Adams Park under trust ownership and Reading wouldn't want it either.
I know there are a lot of things which don't make sense with the ML take over here and RC involvement in Reading but merging clubs is pure fantasy.
That's pretty out there as conspiracy theories go. It could well be that Lomtadze was interested in Reading for the existing academy but decided against it for whatever reasons.
Couhig had wanted to sell up from WWFC for a while before the deal go over the line, as can be deduced from the farcical resignation of Pete and Missy Couhig from the WWFC board without Lomtadze and his people replacing them many months later. It could be a sign that the deal had been in place a while before it finally got over the line not long after the furore over the Bearwood fiasco had blown over.
I'm sure if Mikhail Lomtadze wanted to have interests in both WWFC and Reading he could arrange for that to happen through intermediaries, though the question is a big fat "why"? If his goal is to establish an academy through which he can achieve his goals for the development of young Kazakh players then why bother with WWFC when Reading have an existing academy setup with the necessary facilities and expertise (not to mention a massive mountain of debt to deal with)?
If he wants to set himself the challenge of building an academy following his own vision and directed to follow his specific goals, then why bother with Reading, which has its own aims, goals and inertia from established practise?
As a dyed in the wool cynic when it comes to the shenanigans of club owners and administrators, I personally wouldn't worry about this theory.
Weird as it may sound, I think this interview (quoted below) is probably pretty accurate. ML has acquired a 90% stake in WWFC because we don't come with a lot of baggage - be that debt, nut case previous owner to deal with, over blown expectations based on past glory, pre-existing academy system etc. He wants to be able to develop all that from scratch in his vision. We are, however, an established EFL club that's shown we have the potential to play at a higher level and have a good record in player development. Sometimes what you see really is what you get and it's not so very complicated after all.
In an interview with the British newspaper The Sun, he explained, “Our goal is to achieve long-term success both on and off the pitch, while creating a financially sustainable club. The soccer world is evolving very quickly and our priority will be to integrate data analytics and technology to take the club’s performance to the next level. I am also a firm believer in youth development and this will be fundamental to the vision of the club. We aim to reopen and build a leading high performance academy, which will be an important part of our long-term strategy to develop a club that consistently performs at the highest level.”
The cat has been out of the bag on data analytics and technology for some time now, I wonder how many clubs are not using these tools. We will surely gain an advantage over slow adopters, but surely this is just bringing us up to speed with a lot of the competition now.
Also, he seems a bit confused about the high performance academy, is he re-opening one (and if so, which one) or building one, or as the interview suggests, is he doing both?
Hiring Rob as a front man for an American consortium to buy Reading I fully understand. He passed the fit and proper test so can take over immediately, he has experience running a League One club and a record of success, he even probably has a few million of his own to invest in Reading shares given his sale of Wycombe to Lomtadze. Would he be there for the long term? Probably not. Would the rest of his extended family be involved? Probably not, I suspect this consortium will have others it wants to bring in instead.
Where I'm more flummoxed though is the role of JJ. I can see him working as Rob's football adviser, maybe a director of football role though that's a bit of a stretch. But chief exec of a major football club that struggles to make a profit? Having only just retired as a player and possibly still going through accountancy qualifications? It seems unlikely.
I do note that the ex Reading Chronicle journalist who started this rumour though was confidently predicting that the club would be taken over by Gymshark's Ben Francis a few months / tweets back, so I think maybe JJ as CEO could be taken with a pinch of salt.
As for the chances of Lomtadze being involved now the training ground deal has collapsed, put me in the box marked sceptical. I don't think he has some dastardly plan to merge the clubs, I suspect he doesn't care enough. We're an interesting side project for him that buys him respectability and name recognition in the UK and opens doors to a market that can often be snobbish about new world money, particularly from the ex Soviet satellites. I see shades of early Abramovich in his motivations - though I think he's showing us he's less about opening the chequebook and splashing the cash, more about using data to spot opportunities and then exploring them for incremental gain. But who really knows?
I think you've hit several nails on the head here. I think Rob's connection with Reading started with the Bearwood fiasco. I don't imagine he's anything more than a front man with the right qualifications and experience. I'd be surprised if he was there more than a year.
As for ML, the best things we can say is that Dan Rice is very impressive, we haven't signed a dozen Kazakh U23s and we're not paying Alfie May five figures a week. Good enough for me.
I was getting more worried the more I read on here. However it occurs to me that there is quite a human explanation - that Rob realised when the Bearwood saga unfolded that he had an opportunity for some 'friendly rivalry' with his friend ML. Rob has seemed the sort of person who would relish that.
Evidence that this is conceivable, just to cheer up others who might be fretting over various doom scenarios.
The two clubs have a fairly equal starting position. Both will want to use a cutting edge Academy as a tool for the medium to long term. JJ taking a job there would make sense if friendly rivalry was the tone.
As to how it is likely to turn out. From what we know Rob is likely to be heading a consortium over with the Biscuitboys, and he is not likely to be the member with the financial clout - advantage Wycombe. We have definitely the headstart next season - advantage Wycombe. I don't see current ground size as a problem- we would probably fill ours with a joyous bunch if we made it to the Championship and if finance is not a problem neither would expansion be a problem. Access - certainly advantage Reading at the moment - but maybe a new road will turn out to be feasible and the way Reading use buses could certainly be copied. Also we on here know that the masterplan is a chairlift which allows people to enjoy the Chiltern AONB and provides local ski-ing 340 ish days a year in transistional climate times [365 minus a generous number of home matchdays].
I have talked myself into being much less worried.
For a man who talked about Wycombe being championship regulars it really isn't a stretch to see Reading doing a hell of a lot better than they are now.
Frontman for others is still most likely but Rob'll also be aware of how quickly Derby turned their prospects around and what is possible fairly quickly at Reading should the owner cease to be an idiot.
Btw JJ could do great in that role in the right circumstances, not sure these are them although the blank canvas and obvious need for change may help.
I'd imagine Rob bringing him in there as CEO despite being untested in any non-playing role will be as popular as Ainsworth taking Gapey into QPR for pre-season was.
I doubt Rob gives a toss what their fans think right now, and would get some leeway for being the saviour if any of this turns out to be true, but he'll need support to turn anything around. If they think he's lining his own pockets at their expense it will get very sour very quickly .
Comments
He’s a billionaire, he’s not going to be spending most of his week thinking about Wycombe Wanderers.
I suppose there are a number of things that will never add up as with any separation of parties. Rob did the 'it's not you, it's me, I just want to be single' speech. And turns up with someone else down the road.
So our perception that Rob had run out of gas was wrong, or he had ran out of resource to take us any further was also wrong. But of these perceptions were either inferred or stated.
I am hoping all of this is just a coincidence of timing. Our enquiry to Reading re the ground opened doors and eyes.
It will be interesting when the documentary about US football owners in England comes out. Haven't heard anything else about that since Wembley.
I haven't been able to find much about how Lomtadze's plan has gone down in Kazakhstan save for a short paragraph in an obscure magazine stating that the general reaction seems to be "Wouldn't it be simpler to spend his money here instead of buying a small British club?"
Which seems a fair point.
Chris Kirchner (nearly bought Derby) has been jailed for 20 years in the US for fraud. Lol. Think he passed the owners test.
When you have that much money I would be surprised if he even knew or remembered he had bought a team in Buckinghamshire. Which was my biggest concern. He can afford to spaff away a few million of petty cash with no emotional engagement and not even worry. Rob's level of wealth ensured that he was engaged as he wanted it to be a success as he needed it to be a success.
Once Rob completes the purchase of Reading, how easy is it for him and his "friend" Lomtadze to merge the two clubs? The merged club would have a world class training facility in Bearwood, a 24,000 capacity stadium (which could be increased) and a larger catchment area. The chances of achieving Premier League status would be enhanced with the possibility of a new larger stadium being built. I can't see it happening but would it be possible?
You know there’s more than one person with money that wants to get into football, right?
ya’ll acting like the guy worrying about his new fiance has only agreed to marry him to get closer to your next door neighbour.
Reading was up for sale the entire time ML got interested in and agreed to buy us.
Who knows what will happen but with these wild theories about Reading and merging etc . Could Wycombe be the development club for Reading ? hope not but with all these new owners they don’t exactly work on the same traditional mindset.
But what would be the point of merging Wycombe & Reading, other than to piss off two sets of football supporters. It doesn't make any sort of sense.
Wycombe fans aren't going to support it when we would have a phoenix club playing at Adams Park under trust ownership and Reading wouldn't want it either.
I know there are a lot of things which don't make sense with the ML take over here and RC involvement in Reading but merging clubs is pure fantasy.
Isn't it?
Rob C had to sell us before getting involved in Reading. That Is clear.
But what would the advantage be for our new owner in buying us, if the plan was to get involved with Reading later on?
As bar merging us, he'd still need to ship us off before getting involved with them anyway?
And there's no modern day example of merging clubs is there? Bar Rushden and Diamonds about 30 or more years ago in non league?
And Maxwell mooting the idea with Reading and Swindon even further back?
Maxwell wanted to merge Reading and Oxford, not Reading and Swindon
Wasn't there talk about Stoke and Port Vale merging about 20 years ago?
That's pretty out there as conspiracy theories go. It could well be that Lomtadze was interested in Reading for the existing academy but decided against it for whatever reasons.
Couhig had wanted to sell up from WWFC for a while before the deal go over the line, as can be deduced from the farcical resignation of Pete and Missy Couhig from the WWFC board without Lomtadze and his people replacing them many months later. It could be a sign that the deal had been in place a while before it finally got over the line not long after the furore over the Bearwood fiasco had blown over.
I'm sure if Mikhail Lomtadze wanted to have interests in both WWFC and Reading he could arrange for that to happen through intermediaries, though the question is a big fat "why"? If his goal is to establish an academy through which he can achieve his goals for the development of young Kazakh players then why bother with WWFC when Reading have an existing academy setup with the necessary facilities and expertise (not to mention a massive mountain of debt to deal with)?
If he wants to set himself the challenge of building an academy following his own vision and directed to follow his specific goals, then why bother with Reading, which has its own aims, goals and inertia from established practise?
As a dyed in the wool cynic when it comes to the shenanigans of club owners and administrators, I personally wouldn't worry about this theory.
Weird as it may sound, I think this interview (quoted below) is probably pretty accurate. ML has acquired a 90% stake in WWFC because we don't come with a lot of baggage - be that debt, nut case previous owner to deal with, over blown expectations based on past glory, pre-existing academy system etc. He wants to be able to develop all that from scratch in his vision. We are, however, an established EFL club that's shown we have the potential to play at a higher level and have a good record in player development. Sometimes what you see really is what you get and it's not so very complicated after all.
In an interview with the British newspaper The Sun, he explained, “Our goal is to achieve long-term success both on and off the pitch, while creating a financially sustainable club. The soccer world is evolving very quickly and our priority will be to integrate data analytics and technology to take the club’s performance to the next level. I am also a firm believer in youth development and this will be fundamental to the vision of the club. We aim to reopen and build a leading high performance academy, which will be an important part of our long-term strategy to develop a club that consistently performs at the highest level.”
The cat has been out of the bag on data analytics and technology for some time now, I wonder how many clubs are not using these tools. We will surely gain an advantage over slow adopters, but surely this is just bringing us up to speed with a lot of the competition now.
Also, he seems a bit confused about the high performance academy, is he re-opening one (and if so, which one) or building one, or as the interview suggests, is he doing both?
I believe they're buiding a facility to re-open the Wycombe Wanderers academy.
Hiring Rob as a front man for an American consortium to buy Reading I fully understand. He passed the fit and proper test so can take over immediately, he has experience running a League One club and a record of success, he even probably has a few million of his own to invest in Reading shares given his sale of Wycombe to Lomtadze. Would he be there for the long term? Probably not. Would the rest of his extended family be involved? Probably not, I suspect this consortium will have others it wants to bring in instead.
Where I'm more flummoxed though is the role of JJ. I can see him working as Rob's football adviser, maybe a director of football role though that's a bit of a stretch. But chief exec of a major football club that struggles to make a profit? Having only just retired as a player and possibly still going through accountancy qualifications? It seems unlikely.
I do note that the ex Reading Chronicle journalist who started this rumour though was confidently predicting that the club would be taken over by Gymshark's Ben Francis a few months / tweets back, so I think maybe JJ as CEO could be taken with a pinch of salt.
As for the chances of Lomtadze being involved now the training ground deal has collapsed, put me in the box marked sceptical. I don't think he has some dastardly plan to merge the clubs, I suspect he doesn't care enough. We're an interesting side project for him that buys him respectability and name recognition in the UK and opens doors to a market that can often be snobbish about new world money, particularly from the ex Soviet satellites. I see shades of early Abramovich in his motivations - though I think he's showing us he's less about opening the chequebook and splashing the cash, more about using data to spot opportunities and then exploring them for incremental gain. But who really knows?
I think you've hit several nails on the head here. I think Rob's connection with Reading started with the Bearwood fiasco. I don't imagine he's anything more than a front man with the right qualifications and experience. I'd be surprised if he was there more than a year.
As for ML, the best things we can say is that Dan Rice is very impressive, we haven't signed a dozen Kazakh U23s and we're not paying Alfie May five figures a week. Good enough for me.
I was getting more worried the more I read on here. However it occurs to me that there is quite a human explanation - that Rob realised when the Bearwood saga unfolded that he had an opportunity for some 'friendly rivalry' with his friend ML. Rob has seemed the sort of person who would relish that.
Evidence that this is conceivable, just to cheer up others who might be fretting over various doom scenarios.
The two clubs have a fairly equal starting position. Both will want to use a cutting edge Academy as a tool for the medium to long term. JJ taking a job there would make sense if friendly rivalry was the tone.
As to how it is likely to turn out. From what we know Rob is likely to be heading a consortium over with the Biscuitboys, and he is not likely to be the member with the financial clout - advantage Wycombe. We have definitely the headstart next season - advantage Wycombe. I don't see current ground size as a problem- we would probably fill ours with a joyous bunch if we made it to the Championship and if finance is not a problem neither would expansion be a problem. Access - certainly advantage Reading at the moment - but maybe a new road will turn out to be feasible and the way Reading use buses could certainly be copied. Also we on here know that the masterplan is a chairlift which allows people to enjoy the Chiltern AONB and provides local ski-ing 340 ish days a year in transistional climate times [365 minus a generous number of home matchdays].
I have talked myself into being much less worried.
It started far earlier than that, trust me.
For a man who talked about Wycombe being championship regulars it really isn't a stretch to see Reading doing a hell of a lot better than they are now.
Frontman for others is still most likely but Rob'll also be aware of how quickly Derby turned their prospects around and what is possible fairly quickly at Reading should the owner cease to be an idiot.
Btw JJ could do great in that role in the right circumstances, not sure these are them although the blank canvas and obvious need for change may help.
I'd imagine Rob bringing him in there as CEO despite being untested in any non-playing role will be as popular as Ainsworth taking Gapey into QPR for pre-season was.
I doubt Rob gives a toss what their fans think right now, and would get some leeway for being the saviour if any of this turns out to be true, but he'll need support to turn anything around. If they think he's lining his own pockets at their expense it will get very sour very quickly .
Who's owned the most clubs? Ron Noades?
A couple of Hakas and it'll be all good.
Nick Faldo's probably owned quite a few sets!
Bob from Twin Peaks?
But which of these perceptions was/were either implied or stated ?
To infer is to deduce something from a statement which is not explicit.
We like to scare ourselves. My guess is that during the Bearwood negotiations Rob saw the chance to get involved in flipping Reading.
You've been very restrained in your description of the royals there 😂