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Reading offer Bearwood training ground to Wycombe

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  • Flipping eck !

    It does seem quite an extraordinary outcome, whereas I would have been upset and angry if my family had been abused and threatened online he’s turning them into a bunch of money.

    This is probably why he has $20 million and I have a mortgage.

  • edited July 13

    Sorry everyone it was me that started this bit off!! As I said I was thinking outloud and posting my musings.... id had a long day at work, and was feeling "cosy" after a beer or 4....

    I'm not into conspiracy theories and generally a mild mannered and placid bloke!!

    But at that moment in time, I was letting my imagination run on a free one and posting as I thought 😅

  • edited July 13

    Having said that...... if any of my panicked musings become reality.... I reserve the right to point out my post and tell you all I told you things were not sitting right with me!!!!! 🤣

  • It always goes down well on the gasroom when someone quotes their own post to point out they believe they were right 😁

  • For me at least ......

    Overthinking and over analysing has I think.... set in a bit because we are not hearing anything from the hierarchy over closed season.

    We had a brief introduction online to ML and a one off (so far) interview from Dan Rice.

    The medium and very long term plans of getting into the championship and sustaining that level, then eventually aiming for Premiership status was layed out.... it gave us all a few butterflies and got us all a bit giddy. Even the most pessimistic of us surely got a little boost internally when the promised land of the Premiership was mentioned in the same conversation as Wycombe Wanderers??!

    Since then we haven't heard anything.

    We have signed (on paper at least) arguably some really descent players to bolster the heart of our original squad, that finished last season with so much promise.

    We have been used to RC.... mostly over promising, but always stating his goals for the season in advance.

    I understand ML may like to stay mostly out of sight and work behind the scenes.... but I was kind of hoping Dan Rice would be heading the channels between us and Mikhail, and being at least a bit more transparent about this seasons aims and aspirations.

    Are we planning a safe year of consolidation after the takeover and planning further forward? Or is the plan to spend sensibly and give Championship promotion a real good attempt this season?

    The radio silence is not what we have been used to . I think it gifts us lot the ability to let our stresses and anxieties about the new ownership run wild 🤷

  • Personally I don't feel I need to know what the board expects us to achieve this season. I assume MB knows, and I assume they're not expecting us to get relegated, so otherwise I'm just happy to go along for the ride.

    I stopped listening to any of Couhig's expectations when he guaranteed we wouldn't get relegated on the eve of the Championship season kicking off. I appreciate that he liked to play a positive/confident role, but it never made sense to me given the highly competitive and unpredictable football league system we're in. If the new owners want to play a quieter game and let the performances on the pitch do the talking then I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

  • Tbh, I’ve been pretty happy with the preseason so far. For some reason I didn’t expect a huge amount of news or things WWFC related during the Euros - just didn’t seem the right time for any Press releases from the club.


    They have also got done the one thing I have been critical of the couhig era - get signings done for key areas of the squad early doors and get a good preseason into them. We now have the luxury of also playing the longer game for any loan players to become available - something that is more likely to be last minute this summer as the premier league clubs may want hold onto them while their first teamers are competing in international competitions.


    My only question I have about ML will be if/when his first appearance will be at AP. But even then that’s my own curiosity and doesn’t reflect on anything in particular.

  • I agree with both @Last_Quarter & @Alexo. This is going to be an interesting season, we just have to hope ML & Rice take the rough with the smooth well and everything will be revealed when we are set

  • The contrast between Robs hyperbole and being a professionally run side project to a billionaire will be a little disconcerting but if we stop giving ourselves the willies and look at our pre season we have a lot to be happy about.

  • I don't recall any instances of quoting my own posts, although I can't be bothered to scroll back in all the threads.

    But in any event, I am almost always right, and often provide the evidence to prove it. Trouble is, some Gasroomers refuse to accept the facts and continue to argue like pissing into the wind.

  • We lost 1-0 to notts county yesterday.

    Season over.

  • Lomtadze out 😉

  • As a play on the usual summer joke, Wrexham v Wycombe is already a bottom of the table clash, so the heat is on.

  • Rob’s involvement with Reading is surely about recouping losses he made with us. Front a consortium, invest short term if it looks viable, get paid a consultancy fee. Why not.

    ML and DR not announcing that we will be expecting XY and Z this season is OK. If you say you expect promotion and it doesn’t happen in your first season as owners and executives it opens you up to criticism. If you say at any time you expect to consolidate, you are dammed for lack of ambition.

    Signings look sensible, we have players training at a decent set-up. There may be other sensible behind the scenes activities in infrastructure happening as well.

    ML has a relatively blank canvass with WWFC to get involved in football and player development. If his ownership establishes us as a Championship side with a linked academy that produces great players he’ll have the track record and learning to get involved in bigger things. If he sees himself becoming a football owner and guru on the world stage, then picking a club like us to learn the skills is a smart move.

  • How do you know Rob made a loss with us ?? He may have recouped those losses (if there were any) by selling to ML & maybe even made a profit.

  • edited July 16

    I'm no expert but I am pretty sure one of the positives of being a Limited company is that any debt associated with that Ltd company can't be drawn back from a person directly. Therefore any debt Feliciana EFL Ltd racked up running the club, stayed within that company.

    Therefore, when he sold that company to ML, Rob takes the profit from selling the company, ML takes on the debt. Now that debt might be to Rob personally, in which case him either gets that money back if ML clears the debt or he can charge interest on the debt like a bank does.

    I 100% believe Rob would have walked away with a profit. And fair play to him.

  • That's not really how it works, mate

  • edited July 16

    An investment in Reading (if he isn't just consulting for someone else) would certainly make more sense if he had made a profit here.

    It still wouldn't make lots of sense but perhaps a bit more.

    Btw If I was owed money by Reading currently and were likely to be asked at some point to write it off or to take any kind of reduction I'd be following this all very closely.


  • I am pretty secure that Rob would have made a profit from selling us. His small improvements to ground, new dugouts, sponsorship board, improvements with the floodlights, improvements to the media department and increased subscriptions, adaptations that the ground needed for goal-line tech in the Championship would have all added into the potential of the team's reputation. Being a ex-championship side, having been to Wembley 3 times in the last 5 or 6 years. When you compare that to where we were when he first invested, mid to lower League 1 side who had yo-yo'ed to League 2.

    I don't know what price he would have put on all those changes but it makes the club more attractive to purchase and continue the progression journey with us.

  • edited July 16

    Perhaps you like to explain to me what’s wrong?

    Rob sold Feliciana EFL ltd, which was the entity that held 90% shares of Wycombe Wanderers (not Rob personally) to ML. He didn’t sell the club to him, just the company that held the controlling shares that he happened to be the head off.

    When we voted to allow Rob to buy the shares, it was through that company he did so and so that company had the assets and quite possibly, the debt to do so.

    ML buys the company and therefore the shares in “our” football club with the associated debt, for a price that goes into Robs pocket, as it was his company he started.

    could have been £1. Could have been £5 million. We’ll never know.


    asked yourself why it’s “The Reading Football Club Limited” that’s being chased for money by HMRC and not Dai, or why Derby was owned No Limits Sports Limited rather than Mel Morris direct? Being a limited company affords the people running it certain amounts of protection and lumps the debt onto the clubs.

  • Ainsworth for England

  • Does Lomtadze not have his own investment vehicle company that bought Couhig's shares rather than having bought Feliciana EFL Ltd. lock, stock and barrel as a private individual?

  • Dancing, for your information the way it works is this.

    Obviously we don't know the numbers but for illustration purposes, lets say that Couhig had loaned Feliciana (Fel), which say owned 100% of the club £3m. Lomtadze through his company BOPL valued the club debt free at say £2m.

    What would happen in that situation is that BOPL would acquire the shares of Fel for £1 and at the same time inject funds into Fel to pay off £2m of the debt to Couhig. The remaining £1m debt would be written off as part of the deal. In that scenario Couhig would lose £1m on his investment.

    What would not happen is that BOPL would pay Couhig £2m for the shares in Fel leaving the £3m debt in place.

  • Has anyone managed to find them on companies house yet?

  • No but I found this article

    https://www.insidermedia.com/news/south-west/kitson-boyce-advises-on-sale-of-wycombe-wanderers

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