Chiron were nothing to do with Rob when he was at Wycombe. He bought us through a company called Feliciana EFL Ltd, and it was very much a family affair - Rob was CEO, his nephew, Pete, was CFO, and his wife, Missy, was also on the board and did some work on our merchandise offering. Our new owner, Mikheil Lomtadze, was involved in funding in the latter part of his ownership (in some way that I'm not sure has ever been fully clarified). We also retained some trust representation on the board of directors; when Rob first purchased the club it was a 75% stake, which was later increased to 90%, with the trust retaining the remaining 10%.
Chiron Sports Group website is here - https://www.chironsportsgroup.com/ - they appear to own Venezia FC who recently got promoted to Serie A along with having their fingers in lots of other sporting pies.
Couhig is not listed as a board member so suggest he is the front man to get through the EFL checks etc & maybe be the Chair for a while.
There is no evidence of any prior involvement between RC & Chiron, certainly not at WWFC
You have to remember that Rob came to us and saved us with £100k. He then did a great PR job of engaging with the fans for six months. The basis was that if we don’t like each other the he would go and the £100k would be a commercial loan.
And after six months it became clear he was a good guy. And so was his nephew. And so was Missy. It was common place for them to simply walk up to you in the bar and say ‘hey. How you doing? Everything ok?’ I genuinely believe this was unique in the 92. The level of engagement continued. I made a gripe about something stupid on twitter and got a DM back from Rob about it saying he would look into it. I never asked for that. I’m not sure how he saw that, I never tagged him. He wanted everything better. Did he get everything right, of course not. But I will always remember him and his family fondly for trying and for building an ethos that defined us.
I don’t think you will get that Rob at Reading. It’s a different beast. Your challenges are different to ours. We had a tiny culture that was defined by Gareth Ainsworth that Rob took and grew on and off the field.
Sometimes magic does happen and things fall into place. That was our era with Rob.
Thanks everyone for your replies. Chiron have been sniffing around Reading for a while now and to be honest I am not sure about them. Are they really interested in taking the club forward or will they be the next asset strippers? We can only wait and see, but anyone must be better than Dai Yonnge is now.. I can only hope Rob is a good as an owner for us as he was for you, however long (or short) that turns out to be.
Whatever Chiron's intentions are, I'm sure Rob will genuinely try to put the club in a better position when he leaves than when he arrives, on and off the field. That doesn't rule out unpopular decisions as he definitely has a ruthless streak, but he will not maliciously be taking a role to asset strip a football club
Chiron will obviously want to sell on at a big profit. Probably get the club back on track financially and be pushing to get Reading back to the Championship.
I think Rob’s stewardship will help them hit the ground running. He is a good man and I sincerely hope the Reading fans give him their backing.
This is a sizeable faction of Reading supporters in a nutshell. Couhig will have a much harder time engaging with people demanding that Reading should spend the next sugar daddy's money like there's no tomorrow than he did with any critics he may have had here.
No investor outside of the community is going to buy Reading for philanthropic reasons. The club is leaking cash at a frightening rate. The new owners will need to stem that bleeding and return it to stability. How they do that appears like alchemy to me.
And making unpopular decisions with a fan base who will demand parity with Birmingham, Wrexham etc etc is going to be interesting.
Not a few months ago fans wanted Rob dead and made this clear in an open forum. Protests, death threats, news articles, opinions, arguments, fans held accountable on live debates, Rob hailed as a grave robber, our beloved club dragged through the mud by fans of other teams up and down the country.
I for one hope it goes t!ts up. Probably not a popular opinion but 🤷♂️
Rob is a business man who will follow the opportunity to fulfil his aims; he did that with us & took us as far as he could given his personal resources etc. He saw an opportunity to sell us on to someone with a similar philosophy but much deeper pockets and no doubt was able to realise a profit on his investment.
He then spotted an opportunity to do something similar with Reading following his earlier discussions with Yongge about Bearwood, but was only able to follow up on this once he was able to partner/front for Chiron Group.
Good Luck to him.
He owes us little, however we owe him for saving us from oblivion & some great years including our wonderful flirtation with the Championship.
Do you post similar comments on the ex player thread, or any mention of Gareth?
It's a pretty intriguing situation when your very recently departed chairman, who made noises about leaving due to age and distance to travel, pops up just down the road.
If that's not worthy of debate then not many things are on a forum.
Never a fan of Rob although not saying he didn’t help Wycombe through a difficult period but still think he is full of BS in my opinion although many won’t agree. Think he will struggle with the fans demands and criticism I would suspect things will go a bit Pete Tong very quickly.
Rob is surely just a figurehead to smooth the transition for the new investors. Maybe a way around the dot and proper test. I can’t imagine he’ll be there much beyond Christmas.
I never really understood how he could afford to fund us, never mind the bottomless pit of entropy that is Reading.
Comments
Chiron were nothing to do with Rob when he was at Wycombe. He bought us through a company called Feliciana EFL Ltd, and it was very much a family affair - Rob was CEO, his nephew, Pete, was CFO, and his wife, Missy, was also on the board and did some work on our merchandise offering. Our new owner, Mikheil Lomtadze, was involved in funding in the latter part of his ownership (in some way that I'm not sure has ever been fully clarified). We also retained some trust representation on the board of directors; when Rob first purchased the club it was a 75% stake, which was later increased to 90%, with the trust retaining the remaining 10%.
@theRoyalBiscuit I posted the following on 18/7
Chiron Sports Group website is here - https://www.chironsportsgroup.com/ - they appear to own Venezia FC who recently got promoted to Serie A along with having their fingers in lots of other sporting pies.
Couhig is not listed as a board member so suggest he is the front man to get through the EFL checks etc & maybe be the Chair for a while.
There is no evidence of any prior involvement between RC & Chiron, certainly not at WWFC
Hope that helps
Time for the bedsheets to come off......
This has gone a bit quiet hasn't it? Maybe the long silence before the deal is done.
You have to remember that Rob came to us and saved us with £100k. He then did a great PR job of engaging with the fans for six months. The basis was that if we don’t like each other the he would go and the £100k would be a commercial loan.
And after six months it became clear he was a good guy. And so was his nephew. And so was Missy. It was common place for them to simply walk up to you in the bar and say ‘hey. How you doing? Everything ok?’ I genuinely believe this was unique in the 92. The level of engagement continued. I made a gripe about something stupid on twitter and got a DM back from Rob about it saying he would look into it. I never asked for that. I’m not sure how he saw that, I never tagged him. He wanted everything better. Did he get everything right, of course not. But I will always remember him and his family fondly for trying and for building an ethos that defined us.
I don’t think you will get that Rob at Reading. It’s a different beast. Your challenges are different to ours. We had a tiny culture that was defined by Gareth Ainsworth that Rob took and grew on and off the field.
Sometimes magic does happen and things fall into place. That was our era with Rob.
Chiron weren't involved with Wycombe, from my understanding they had been sniffing around Reading for a while though
Some Big spenders in Lge1 this season, I wonder if Chiron see Reading as less desirable in the current climate
Thanks everyone for your replies. Chiron have been sniffing around Reading for a while now and to be honest I am not sure about them. Are they really interested in taking the club forward or will they be the next asset strippers? We can only wait and see, but anyone must be better than Dai Yonnge is now.. I can only hope Rob is a good as an owner for us as he was for you, however long (or short) that turns out to be.
Whatever Chiron's intentions are, I'm sure Rob will genuinely try to put the club in a better position when he leaves than when he arrives, on and off the field. That doesn't rule out unpopular decisions as he definitely has a ruthless streak, but he will not maliciously be taking a role to asset strip a football club
Chiron will obviously want to sell on at a big profit. Probably get the club back on track financially and be pushing to get Reading back to the Championship.
I think Rob’s stewardship will help them hit the ground running. He is a good man and I sincerely hope the Reading fans give him their backing.
This is a sizeable faction of Reading supporters in a nutshell. Couhig will have a much harder time engaging with people demanding that Reading should spend the next sugar daddy's money like there's no tomorrow than he did with any critics he may have had here.
No investor outside of the community is going to buy Reading for philanthropic reasons. The club is leaking cash at a frightening rate. The new owners will need to stem that bleeding and return it to stability. How they do that appears like alchemy to me.
And making unpopular decisions with a fan base who will demand parity with Birmingham, Wrexham etc etc is going to be interesting.
Personally if I was Rob I would run a mile.
Not sure if anyone has just seen Rob Couhigs tweet but it looks like deal done..
He hasn’t tweeted that he’s renewed his Wanderers TV subscription
Rob who?
A good job he posted the screen grab or we might have jumped to the wrong conclusion.
I thought he was just settling down to a boxed set ...
'Reading's owner stands in front of Adams Park in profile pic scandal.'
Sadly, Couhig may be juggling Wanderers TV and Royals TV passes because he really doesn't want to watch that every week.
CM playing fans will be expecting the "A consortium has taken over and made 15million available for transfer fees" message to pop up tomorrow.
I don't really care but it does make all the protestations about their love for Wycombe stick in the craw a bit doesn't it?
We all actually love Wycombe, and none of us would walk away and get involved with Reading.
I don't mind him doing it, but don't make out what a lifelong fan you're going to be while you're here. It's bullshit
The Reading fans seem to love Rob now. In their eyes, this is the biggest face turn since Macho Man Randy Savage at Wrestlemania VII.
I don't know why we are getting so bothered about what RC does. He's no longer connected to WWFC, life moves on.
Not a few months ago fans wanted Rob dead and made this clear in an open forum. Protests, death threats, news articles, opinions, arguments, fans held accountable on live debates, Rob hailed as a grave robber, our beloved club dragged through the mud by fans of other teams up and down the country.
I for one hope it goes t!ts up. Probably not a popular opinion but 🤷♂️
Sadly this is what football is about nowadays.
Rob is a business man who will follow the opportunity to fulfil his aims; he did that with us & took us as far as he could given his personal resources etc. He saw an opportunity to sell us on to someone with a similar philosophy but much deeper pockets and no doubt was able to realise a profit on his investment.
He then spotted an opportunity to do something similar with Reading following his earlier discussions with Yongge about Bearwood, but was only able to follow up on this once he was able to partner/front for Chiron Group.
Good Luck to him.
He owes us little, however we owe him for saving us from oblivion & some great years including our wonderful flirtation with the Championship.
Do you post similar comments on the ex player thread, or any mention of Gareth?
It's a pretty intriguing situation when your very recently departed chairman, who made noises about leaving due to age and distance to travel, pops up just down the road.
If that's not worthy of debate then not many things are on a forum.
Never a fan of Rob although not saying he didn’t help Wycombe through a difficult period but still think he is full of BS in my opinion although many won’t agree. Think he will struggle with the fans demands and criticism I would suspect things will go a bit Pete Tong very quickly.
What will be really interesting is how Rob talks about both clubs if/when he officially takes over.
Rob is surely just a figurehead to smooth the transition for the new investors. Maybe a way around the dot and proper test. I can’t imagine he’ll be there much beyond Christmas.
I never really understood how he could afford to fund us, never mind the bottomless pit of entropy that is Reading.
Saturday 7th December. The bedsheet derby. Things could get very spicy. Like a spicy Creole Po-boy (If that's a thing)
Or more likely everybody stays at home because it's cold and watches the game on Sky.