You and me both...but if I'm going to be faced with protests outside matches or during them for the foreseeable...I would like a bit more from the club to illuminate what the hell the plan is/was, where we got £25 or even £10 million to pay for it and is the money going to help Reading FC or are we going to be held eternally responsible for millions being trousered by an unscrupulous business man who does not pay wages or tax and looks to be killing the club he owns. In the absence of information, rumour, speculation and wild theories is the way of the world in general, never mind the sad people on football forums.
@glasshalffull Do you think Reading fans should protest their plight? Or should they wait until HMRC confirm they have been wound up. What level of debt should we start to be concerned at ourselves? Or always just best to pipe down and await our fate?
Trust in football club ownership is at an all time low (either due to corruption or incompetence it doesn't really matter which) and is only magnified by speculation.
On the face of it the Couhigs deserve more trust than Younge but the comms is minimal at best as it was with the loss of the quarter and losses were alarming anyway with almost zero progress on any capital items before we decided to borrow loadsamoney and give it to a guy who's busy bankrupting Reading.
Protests or not. No one in there right mind ever gives a running commentary, or even a weekly update on multi million pound agreements unless they are trying to attract attention and other bidders into the process.
Expecting updates other than the one we got from the club yesterday is pretty naive. The only thing worse than nothing to intensify social media gossip is to keep putting new information out for people to speculate on.
Hmm @glasshalffull for a man who proudly trumpets his journalistic training... I'm not sure many journalists, having been confronted with this story, the limited information put out by both sets of management, the totally opaque processes that are being invoked and the howls of genuine anguish from thousands of supporters of both football clubs would say, 'you know what, let's just wait and see'.
But each to their own, of course.
Now I'm not naive enough to demand access to privileged information while a business deal is being negotiated. We're not going to get a running commentary, nor should we. Personally at this stage I would be content with just one piece of information, one snippet, one morsel. What the hell hold does Mikhail Lomtadze have over WWFC, Feliciana, Rob Couhig? Oh and for a bonus ask, which vehicle is negotiating the purchase of Bearwood? Any of those mentioned or a completely new entity?
"In buying the training ground from READING'S OWNER, Wycombe have made interested buyers walk away from buying the club from READING'S OWNER."
Surely Dai is aware of the facts above, and still chose to sell? It's not like he is suddenly saying "Oh crap! I just realized that in selling the training ground I have undermined my own valiant attempts to offload the entire club!!!!"
Mixed feelings on this, but the outrage without knowing the details is premature.
Bearwood looks an incredible facility, but it's a white elephant for a league 1 club with Reading's fanbase, and even more so if they go down to league 2 with further points deductions from not paying wages again (without the money from the sale coming in).
If Couhig's plan is to buy it, then both clubs to share the facility with Reading paying an affordable rent, then surely this is a positive for both clubs in the current situation and the only realistic way outside of a philanthropic billionaire white knight appearing for Reading that Bearwood isn't a huge burden on a league 2 club.
I get their fans want to keep everything, but a category 1 academy with a premier League facility isn't sustainable at this level.
If their owner isn't getting offers for the club that are better than our apparently cut price deal, then he's clearly not getting anything he's going to accept. Selling the training ground could make it easier to find new bidders as you'd need less funds.
With the level of debt it'll almost certainly require administration and debtors losing out, but that looks inevitable unless someone is willing to come in and service the silly debts. Surely HMRC liquidating a club is more likely with a huge asset that they could sell to recover some losses?
If our involvement has knowingly stopped a realistic buy out, I'm dead against it, but there's minimal evidence of that in public.
At the end of the day, it's one or two mega rich people buying it off another one, nothing to do with Wycombe Wanderers as a club or it's fans really, so their fans rage at us is entirely misplaced. I hope they survive, but, as with Derby, our involvement (on current evidence) is a sideshow with an easy scapegoat for their fans.
It's not a lapse in logic @Shev it's a lapse in trust. He has history in winding up clubs and squirrelling away money. He would need EFL and probably HMRC and court approval to sell the club and someone prepared to write off debts and form a business plan to take it forward, and the fact it is unviable and debt laden makes that unattractive. That's why clubs like that sell for a pound. Much easier to move an asset to a different company in the group, flog that and keep the money for yourself.
Or in 10 years time our 'billionaire owner' has got bored, lost money, and is busy selling off all our assets for pocket money as we're losing millions a week.
Sorry, think you're missing that most Reading fans don't think he is actively trying to sell the club and he'd be quite happy bankrupting it. If he's got out with anywhere near £10m from this after the mess he's made there he probably thinks he's done well. He's also unlikely to care if he gets disqualified from being a director of UK companies or is sanctioned in anyway by the EFL.
A good journalist would seek information from both sides of the story before rushing into print with wild speculation that can’t be verified. Sadly, no such restraints exist in the jungle that is social media.
Both clubs have issued official statements confirming that WWFC are in negotiations to purchase RFC’s training ground and that is where we stand on a story that broke only 24 hours ago.
In the meantime, I am sure Aristotle’s vacuum will continue to be filled (if you’ll pardon the expression!).
Reading fans obviously have the right to protest about their owners and have been doing so for a considerable time. Whether they are right to protest about Wycombe’s role in this proposed deal before further details have been released is a very different matter.
@glasshalffull any idea when further details will be released that will stop Reading fans thinking they are right to protest about Wycombe's role in it.
This is the problem isn't it. The longer it goes on without any further comment people are just going to guess and it'll just get more and more heated as it's an emotional subject. I do really feel for the Reading fans and I'm still really not sure about all this. But, if it turns out the money IS going to the club, and maybe we're not booting them out of the training ground and maybe planning to share with them, with them paying us a nominal fee, then I think a lot of Wycombe and Reading fans will be a bit happier. But, if our owners are infact just knowingly lining the pockets of an awful owner and putting the very existence of a club at risk, I for one will be utterly disgusted.
Oh for just a little more snippet of info, but I do understand it probably won't happen.
The question about whose name will be on the title deeds is a crucial one. If it's Feliciana EFL, why are they presenting the negotiations as being between the clubs?
If it's WWFC Ltd, how will the club be able to operate a vastly more expensive training facility than we currently have?
There is also the possibility that the owner will be Lomtadze/A. N. Other.
An extra bonus question would be "What gives the Couhigs any belief that (to quote the press release) if a transaction completes it will provide Reading with necessary financial support to ensure that they are able to meet their ongoing financial obligations?"
Comments
You and me both...but if I'm going to be faced with protests outside matches or during them for the foreseeable...I would like a bit more from the club to illuminate what the hell the plan is/was, where we got £25 or even £10 million to pay for it and is the money going to help Reading FC or are we going to be held eternally responsible for millions being trousered by an unscrupulous business man who does not pay wages or tax and looks to be killing the club he owns. In the absence of information, rumour, speculation and wild theories is the way of the world in general, never mind the sad people on football forums.
Go for a BonBon or Custard Cream as they have a corner that might hurt! (Plus they are cheaper and you get more of them in a pack!)
Not these days...smaller and lighter than the 1970s when you could have done some real damage.
AQOTD
And put on a firework display!
@glasshalffull Do you think Reading fans should protest their plight? Or should they wait until HMRC confirm they have been wound up. What level of debt should we start to be concerned at ourselves? Or always just best to pipe down and await our fate?
Trust in football club ownership is at an all time low (either due to corruption or incompetence it doesn't really matter which) and is only magnified by speculation.
On the face of it the Couhigs deserve more trust than Younge but the comms is minimal at best as it was with the loss of the quarter and losses were alarming anyway with almost zero progress on any capital items before we decided to borrow loadsamoney and give it to a guy who's busy bankrupting Reading.
Protests or not. No one in there right mind ever gives a running commentary, or even a weekly update on multi million pound agreements unless they are trying to attract attention and other bidders into the process.
Expecting updates other than the one we got from the club yesterday is pretty naive. The only thing worse than nothing to intensify social media gossip is to keep putting new information out for people to speculate on.
On the plus side, we're not trending on X anymore.
On Facebook supporters are calling this 'boring' while on X it seems to be shaping up to be Hamas-Israel 2.0
I suppose this place is the middle ground.
Hmm @glasshalffull for a man who proudly trumpets his journalistic training... I'm not sure many journalists, having been confronted with this story, the limited information put out by both sets of management, the totally opaque processes that are being invoked and the howls of genuine anguish from thousands of supporters of both football clubs would say, 'you know what, let's just wait and see'.
But each to their own, of course.
Now I'm not naive enough to demand access to privileged information while a business deal is being negotiated. We're not going to get a running commentary, nor should we. Personally at this stage I would be content with just one piece of information, one snippet, one morsel. What the hell hold does Mikhail Lomtadze have over WWFC, Feliciana, Rob Couhig? Oh and for a bonus ask, which vehicle is negotiating the purchase of Bearwood? Any of those mentioned or a completely new entity?
One lapse of logic for me:
"In buying the training ground from READING'S OWNER, Wycombe have made interested buyers walk away from buying the club from READING'S OWNER."
Surely Dai is aware of the facts above, and still chose to sell? It's not like he is suddenly saying "Oh crap! I just realized that in selling the training ground I have undermined my own valiant attempts to offload the entire club!!!!"
Long time since my last post but here goes.
Mixed feelings on this, but the outrage without knowing the details is premature.
Bearwood looks an incredible facility, but it's a white elephant for a league 1 club with Reading's fanbase, and even more so if they go down to league 2 with further points deductions from not paying wages again (without the money from the sale coming in).
If Couhig's plan is to buy it, then both clubs to share the facility with Reading paying an affordable rent, then surely this is a positive for both clubs in the current situation and the only realistic way outside of a philanthropic billionaire white knight appearing for Reading that Bearwood isn't a huge burden on a league 2 club.
I get their fans want to keep everything, but a category 1 academy with a premier League facility isn't sustainable at this level.
If their owner isn't getting offers for the club that are better than our apparently cut price deal, then he's clearly not getting anything he's going to accept. Selling the training ground could make it easier to find new bidders as you'd need less funds.
With the level of debt it'll almost certainly require administration and debtors losing out, but that looks inevitable unless someone is willing to come in and service the silly debts. Surely HMRC liquidating a club is more likely with a huge asset that they could sell to recover some losses?
If our involvement has knowingly stopped a realistic buy out, I'm dead against it, but there's minimal evidence of that in public.
At the end of the day, it's one or two mega rich people buying it off another one, nothing to do with Wycombe Wanderers as a club or it's fans really, so their fans rage at us is entirely misplaced. I hope they survive, but, as with Derby, our involvement (on current evidence) is a sideshow with an easy scapegoat for their fans.
It's not a lapse in logic @Shev it's a lapse in trust. He has history in winding up clubs and squirrelling away money. He would need EFL and probably HMRC and court approval to sell the club and someone prepared to write off debts and form a business plan to take it forward, and the fact it is unviable and debt laden makes that unattractive. That's why clubs like that sell for a pound. Much easier to move an asset to a different company in the group, flog that and keep the money for yourself.
In 10 years time I'm looking forward to our academy sourced team winning the Championship by Christmas
Or in 10 years time our 'billionaire owner' has got bored, lost money, and is busy selling off all our assets for pocket money as we're losing millions a week.
True, but my point is that it is still always going to come down to him for the club to be sold on.
Sorry, think you're missing that most Reading fans don't think he is actively trying to sell the club and he'd be quite happy bankrupting it. If he's got out with anywhere near £10m from this after the mess he's made there he probably thinks he's done well. He's also unlikely to care if he gets disqualified from being a director of UK companies or is sanctioned in anyway by the EFL.
@TheDancingYak Thank Christ the club have successfully averted any intense media speculation.
A good journalist would seek information from both sides of the story before rushing into print with wild speculation that can’t be verified. Sadly, no such restraints exist in the jungle that is social media.
Both clubs have issued official statements confirming that WWFC are in negotiations to purchase RFC’s training ground and that is where we stand on a story that broke only 24 hours ago.
In the meantime, I am sure Aristotle’s vacuum will continue to be filled (if you’ll pardon the expression!).
I think a packet of (no) Club biscuits could take them out
Sizeable gathering by the time ITV news got there...
Should be fun for those going to AP tonight.
Reading fans obviously have the right to protest about their owners and have been doing so for a considerable time. Whether they are right to protest about Wycombe’s role in this proposed deal before further details have been released is a very different matter.
Muppets
@glasshalffull any idea when further details will be released that will stop Reading fans thinking they are right to protest about Wycombe's role in it.
Just seen some footage.
We're gonna need a bigger packet of biscuits.
This is the problem isn't it. The longer it goes on without any further comment people are just going to guess and it'll just get more and more heated as it's an emotional subject. I do really feel for the Reading fans and I'm still really not sure about all this. But, if it turns out the money IS going to the club, and maybe we're not booting them out of the training ground and maybe planning to share with them, with them paying us a nominal fee, then I think a lot of Wycombe and Reading fans will be a bit happier. But, if our owners are infact just knowingly lining the pockets of an awful owner and putting the very existence of a club at risk, I for one will be utterly disgusted.
Oh for just a little more snippet of info, but I do understand it probably won't happen.
Bless them, they brought flowers for us.
https://x.com/james_e1871/status/1768710173059699008?s=46&t=NSnejW9CPf67ATu8NbTRzA
The question about whose name will be on the title deeds is a crucial one. If it's Feliciana EFL, why are they presenting the negotiations as being between the clubs?
If it's WWFC Ltd, how will the club be able to operate a vastly more expensive training facility than we currently have?
There is also the possibility that the owner will be Lomtadze/A. N. Other.
An extra bonus question would be "What gives the Couhigs any belief that (to quote the press release) if a transaction completes it will provide Reading with necessary financial support to ensure that they are able to meet their ongoing financial obligations?"