Reading offer Bearwood training ground to Wycombe
It would seem that Dai Yongge has offered the training ground to Couhig/Lomtadze.
It’s also reported we have agreed to buy the training ground. It sits in 120 acres of Wokinghams countryside and cost in excess of £50M to buy and build 5-10 years ago.
This for me would be a huge concern going forward if Lomtadze bought Reading, transferred the ground back to them and we were then forced to rent it.
This purchase sets alarm bells ringing. I hope we look after Reading in any rental agreement going forward.
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If true, and it’s a huge if, on completely non emotional business terms it would be a no brainier. A premier league level training facility for buttons.
In the real world with emotion and passion etc, the optics of this move would be awful. Especially after the whole derby ambulance chasing accusations.
If we can buy a massive training facility, why has it taken so long to buy the land and build the access road?? With the price(s) that have been mentioned, that would easily pay for the land, the actual access road to be build and a brand up main stand and terrace!? We don't have the biggest squad in the world, buying this facility is going to cause most of it to be unused for several hours/days at a time could lead to it losing its quality - unless is this a plan for us to restart our youth system?
There are so many questions surrounding this, why haven't the club come out and told us first? Where are the finances coming from? Is this being purchased with cash or are we having to loan it? Where will that debt land? @AlanCecil @bluntphil Is there anything that you know from an unofficial point of view?
https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/party-exits-reading-fc-takeover-talks-after-wycombe-wanderers-development/
“Short-term funding will be the excuse used for this sale, but it's clear that the sale of the training ground will make the club less attractive to buy.”
hmmmmmm
Because it’s a more simple purchase of property/land rather than having to go through the hoops of trying to build something on complete new land.
No need for planning permission, architects, builders, local council/government involvement etc etc etc.
Remember the plans for our own new training ground in Marlow? This has fast tracked that process significantly.
Also, Manchester United and Man City used to both train at the same Carrington site, albeit it separately and it was a big site, until city built there own ground. To answer the “unused for hours” concern - IF reading still exists after, they’d need somewhere to train.
That’s just speculation on the speculation we are looking to buy the training facility
If this is true, then I'd be pretty disgusted to see our owners taking advantage of a club in such a dire financial situation. Let's not forget, this could have been (and very nearly was) us just a few years ago.
We should play no part in the asset stripping of other clubs.
Let's not forget the abuse we got from Derby fans during the legal case. Their words were mostly unfounded, but the criticism we'd get for this would be wholly justified. I don't like this one bit.
The biggest questions I have are...
1) Which company has bought it? WWFC Ltd or Feliciana or A.N. Other & Sons?
2) If it belongs to the football club now, how was this financed?
I'll have to say I didn't see WWFC buying the Bearwood training ground coming, not least because our finances are dependent on Couhigs plugging ever increasing losses. When the dust settles, we'll hopefully have further details about the arrangement and who's now in hock to whom.
Absolutely is speculation. But needs to be shared and talked about so we can get answers as to what is going on. We need to be making noise about this as it could potentially be catastrophic.
It'd surely be impossible for the football club to afford to buy it, unless Couhig/Lomtadze have made some Frank Adams style donation. Far more likely it'll be owned by one of them, and given the sums involved, it'll be Lomtadze.
BTW was there once a long debate on here about whether you'd ever be allowed to build housing on the Marlow Road training ground? I guess we'll get to find out now!
Houses, or extension to the already agreed film studio across the road?
Fuck me. Nah, let's not do this. Agree the optics would be absolutely terrible.
Here's the story from a proper source https://theathletic.com/5339939/2024/03/13/wycombe-reading-training-ground-bearwood-park/
The only way it wouldn’t be (long term, short term it still would be) is if there was a clause in the deal that ensured that money raised goes directly to Reading Football club and not there owner and it is to be sold back, at no profit, to any new owner of Reading Football club.
Which I can almost be certain there wouldn’t be any such clause.
On a completely selfish front, if it goes through and we now train there - it’s not going to be “our” training facilities. It will be own owners that lets us train there and could kick us out when they get bored/a more profitable solution is found and suddenly both us and Reading have no where to train.
I thought this would be unprecedented, but it appears from that article Wigan bought Bolton's training ground when the latter were getting themselves into trouble. Still a terrible look - Reading are nearer the abyss now than Bolton were in 2016, too, as it took three more years for Bolton to be about where Reading are now.
This where I worry about having American owners. The idea of "amazing value for money" may well trump any (already lesser) understanding of how much football clubs really do mean to their communities. I could well imagine RC saying the only interests that matter to him are Wycombe's, which in the Derby case and context was justified (where we received small compensation for a massive missed opportunity without genuinely endangering the rivals), but not in this case, where we would be assisting in an asset strip potentially leading to liquidation.
A few posts on the Reading forum already about how we would be the most hated target of their phoenix club. Can't say I would blame them if there are no underlying mitigating factors at work.
Hoping there is more nuance to this. To be at all connected to Reading's downfall, and have the whole club connected to that stain for ever, would be awful.
Rough time to be a Wycombe fan. We’ve already been judged and executed by most Twitter users who you can see have a far larger reach/influence than most websites articles.
Let’s just hope there’s actually a positive spin to it.
Need an official stance on this today but can we expect one?
Were you outraged by Wigan buying Bolton's training ground when they were in serious trouble? Or Barnet feasting on the carcass of Wealdstone's project at what is now the Hive?
Completely agree that the club need to get some kind of statement out there today, either way. One of the top trending topics on Twitter, and none of it looks good.
Per my post above, this feels like it could have a lot more potential to be a major factor in a club going completely out of business, especially if a prospective buyer has already walked away over it.
How frustrating it must be for Reading fans if Dai has really shot his own deal in the foot in order to piecemeal out the assets. There is literally no need at all for their club to go to the wall, but it almost feels inevitable.
Rob In the press conference in Reading, after buying Readings training ground on the premise it will help Reading survive (trying to distract people from the nuclear bomb driving around)
IMHO we got fecked over for our current training ground from within. How that doesn’t get highlighted more is a mystery to me.
The former: didn't know it happened. The latter: I wasn't really in the know on such things when I was 12 (but with Wealdstone running in my family, I know very well the feelings there).
Always be wary of low flying helicopters and Sainsbury vans heading towards Aldermaston.
AFAIK there was no outrage, no calling fans scum, no "bad optics" nonsense. The alternative was to let any old chancer buy the land and stick up a load of houses on it. Then Wycombe would have been the bad guys for not taking the opportunity to keep it as a footballing facility.
https://twitter.com/James_BFP/status/1768186458387435755
Its true and its costing £25 Million
Let's just say someone did at a Trust meeting and the football club chairman launched a foul-mouthed tirade at the person asking a perfectly reasonable question about who now owned the training ground, so no wonder no one else has.
If he has money to buy the training ground wouldn’t Reading be a better option for him to buy rather then us . premier league standard ground etc can’t see why he is interested in Wycombe.
All part of an evil masterplan to merge the two clubs
you could be right , or buy both !
Strewth.