Reading (A) match thread - Jan 13th

[Conrad]

33 minutes ago, rayzer said:

A couple of things that could put the kibosh on Yongge's plans is for the local council to state that Reading FC and the training grounds are community facilities and will only be allowed to be used for football and no planning permissions will be allowed for housing etc. It is what our council did. Or am I wrong?

I think you have to apply to have the stadium deemed a community asset (or something like that)

but you’re right, the stadium/ land con only be used for sporting events.

[Black & Gold Group]

I think I’m right in saying Vale Park is now a community asset, registered currently with Mark Porter. 

[Clyde1998]

2 hours ago, rayzer said:

A couple of things that could put the kibosh on Yongge's plans is for the local council to state that Reading FC and the training grounds are community facilities and will only be allowed to be used for football and no planning permissions will be allowed for housing etc. It is what our council did. Or am I wrong?

Reading Borough Council awarded the stadium and its surrounding site Asset of Community Value status (which lasts five years) and is registered to the supporters' trust, who will be informed the site is listed for sale. I believe that will allow a moratorium period of six months to raise the finance to purchase the asset. The issue is the stadium was sold to Dai for £26.5m, which the EFL confirmed as a fair market value - the fans wouldn't be able to achieve this by themselves.

The pressure group (Sell Before We Dai) attempted to get the same status for the training ground from Wokingham Borough Council, but it doesn't qualify as it's not open to the public.

Regarding planning applications, I don't think any Reading councillor would support changing the use, but Wokingham Borough Council have been problematic in regards to planning applications regarding the club in the past. Outside of Reading, Wokingham probably has the biggest percentage of people who support Reading (West Berkshire would be the only council which would contest this) so their councillors would certainly be subject to pressure. I doubt they would support any change of use though as it would eat into the divide between the towns of Reading and Wokingham.

Both Reading and Wokingham councils have elections in May. I've contacted the pressure group to see what would be the best course of action regarding these elections. I briefly floated the idea of supporters standing as candidates on our forum (as a last resort) should that be deemed necessary at any point. In practice, we'll probably find out which candidates would support or oppose any development of the sites should they be sold by Dai and advise people accordingly.

SBWD have been in contact with all the MPs across Berkshire and have strong support from the MPs from Reading East (Matt Rodda, Lab) and Bracknell (James Sunderland, Con). The MP for Reading West (Alok Sharma, Con) said he didn't know enough about football to help adequately, but would support any proposals from the other two. MPs knowing a general election is around the corner may make MPs/candidates more favourable at the moment.

I think the biggest risk comes from someone buying either and extracting large amounts of rent. As Dai owns the stadium, we currently have to pay him £1.5m in rent each season (I'm not sure what a reasonable going rate is for stadium rent) on top of the maintenance costs. Another professional sports team (most likely a rugby club) purchasing the stadium is another risk - which is what happened at Coventry. London Irish were getting around 8,000-11,000 when they were playing Premiership Rugby matches at the ground.

[Clyde1998]

4 hours ago, Rampant Zebra said:

Regardless of the unfortunate circumstances which Reading find themselves in I think it was poor to get the game abandoned. They have disrupted our season when we were just beginning to see an improvement in form. It puts more pressure on the next two home games and will have unsettled our squad. I bet Jensen Weir was a bit disappointed with his league debut for example. 

I completely understand this point.

I'm personally surprised they didn't finish the game once the ground was cleared. I remained in the stadium with the person who sits next to me until the stewards requested we leave (probably around 10-15 minutes after the announcement of the game being abandoned); it appeared things were being set up for a resumption, including one of our players going into the dugout with their full kit still on.

Before leaving the site, I checked if your team coach had left and saw a number of our players leaving the player's entrance which confirmed the game wasn't going to be restarted. Upon walking away from there, I ended up being a chaperone to one of your players (I think it was Conor Grant) to the hotel entrance where he was meeting his wife(?) and kid. He seemed unfazed by it all and was laughing when he asked me if I went on the pitch (I didn't). Hopefully it doesn't affect your players too much; I think they likely just feel it's not something they should dwell on as it was a result of a situation that doesn't involve them.

If the game does get replayed, I imagine we'll have a much weaker team than the one we put out on Saturday. One of our CBs is apparently going before the end of the week, with another being sold but loaned back. Multiple clubs are linked with a few of our other players - Portsmouth apparently are interested in one of our midfielders, a couple of clubs have enquired about another player. Our recent good league form has been helped by having a consistent side, which wasn't the case earlier in the season. We'll be heavily disrupted and weakened by this transfer window.

[Clyde1998]

6 hours ago, onestepatatime said:

Absolutely mind boggling mate! With all this info all I can say is massive commiserations with your plight. You have eloquently expressed fully the total mess Reading F C are in. However I keep coming back to the Leagues decision to have agreed to the Owners fit and proper criteria. It was apparently common knowledge of his previous dodgey ( to say the least) dealings. True fans need to stand together to rid our beautiful game of such con men. All the best Reading, you'll need it!

I think it would be interesting to know why the Premier League rejected his takeover of Hull prior to him purchasing us. I believe he was part of a consortium in that bid, so it may not have been him that triggered the failing of the Premier League's test.

From what I gather, at least at the time he took over, the EFL's test came down to whether the purchaser had money and whether they had any criminal convictions for financial related matters.

3 hours ago, Jacko51 said:

If he's defrauded a Chinese bank out of £770 million, how come his kneecaps are still intact?!!

Thanks very much for explaining the situation, Clyde.  I very much hope your club is saved.

We'll see what happens with that case. If he has defrauded a Chinese bank (and it's likely with the amount of different reports there's been at least one case), due to the level of corruption within China, he may well get away with it. From my understanding, one of the cases alleged saw Dai get awarded damaged from a former employee through corrupt means.

9 hours ago, Howjy04 said:

Rick Parry meeting with Reading fans today.He says there is no point in fining Dai as he wouldn’t pay.The EFL can’t relieve Dai of the club irrespective,he’s the owner of the Ltd company.They don’t have the powers to force a sale.

The pressure group (Sell Before We Dai) had a Twitter spaces event tonight. They confirmed that took place and an EFL statement will come out by the end of the week; they weren't able to go into specifics about what would be in that statement.

Something that came up in that event was the potential of the EFL getting Dai disqualified from owning the club. This could be a very good thing or a very bad thing for the club, as it would force Dai to relinquish control of the club within 28 days or the club would face being excluded from the league.

I think the EFL have basically ran out of options. All their regulations assume a club's owner would sell the club once an owner is no longer able to, or doesn't want to, provide enough funds to keep the club operating. I think Parry made the point to the DCMS committee that this is a unique case where the owner doesn't appear to be trying (meaningfully) to sell in that situation.

 

I should just say to everyone, thank you for your kind words and support.

[Wozza4England]

12 hours ago, PVFC764 said:

If the game is to be played again, then it sets a precedence that fans can get a game abandoned if they are loosing.  It will be then be replayed and the team may win that game.  But a points deduction and loss of 3 points for that game would more appropriate punishment.  

Just a difficult one as there are arguments for both sides. 

Bet the owner is not even bothered by the fines or the bad press he is getting.  Has he actually paid the previous fines?

Please tell me you didn’t read my post before replying. If you did read it and you think fans would force an abandonment and a 20 points deduction just to have a chance of avoiding a loss of 3 points…… well I honestly don’t know what to think.

[Warren]

On 15/01/2024 at 09:02, Brian Johnson said:

Not shouldn't but now 

In the parliamentary committee today the main issue came out. That is the EFL can disqualify the owner from being a director of a member football club. But they can't force the director / owner to sell up. That's logical because the EFL doesnt have any enforcement powers in company law or personal civil law re the running of a business. 

So the problem is that the powers the EFL has are punishing in nature within the football competition. But they can make things worse in the business survival context. Essentially a malevolent person in authority can't be dealt with effectively. 

[PVFC764]

7 hours ago, Wozza4England said:

Please tell me you didn’t read my post before replying. If you did read it and you think fans would force an abandonment and a 20 points deduction just to have a chance of avoiding a loss of 3 points…… well I honestly don’t know what to think.

There are some fans who probably would not think things all the way through and just try to get that game abandoned to keep the club up - not understanding/caring the club will be fined and docked points.  Not saying Vale fans.  Could be any club fans.

You would hope they wouldn't, but some would think it would be good fun and a chance to cause trouble.  Now would you call them fans or just those who look to cause trouble against other fans.  Got to punch a opposition fan - great day.  Yes we have seen this happen at games been to where police did not segregate fans as we were in that area and we went to watch a game of football.  A couple of home fans just laid into a family of opposition fans and they were not worried it was a family - they just hit them all as they ran past them.  Kids and a women.  They were not Vale fans or family by the way. 

So you can see why I take a cynical view about some fans would look at getting games stopped.  

 

[Birches Head Fred]

Any news on when we can expect any news ?

Another point - are Wigan expected to fork out for extra security on Saturday?

[Quart]

14 hours ago, Birches Head Fred said:

Any news on when we can expect any news ?

Another point - are Wigan expected to fork out for extra security on Saturday?

We have no intention of disrupting away games - only when we were on ITV and staff were not paid a day before there was a tennis ball protest away at Eastleigh which ITV covered really well. 
 

I don’t think we would get much sympathy if we was to repeat Saturday, it’s no doubt pushed us into the news and we’ve heard more from the club this week in months - it’s silly it come to this, hopefully we don’t need to do so again and we get some positive news on a sale!

[Birches Head Fred]

We have no intention of disrupting away games - only when we were on ITV and staff were not paid a day before there was a tennis ball protest away at Eastleigh which ITV covered really well. 
 
I don’t think we would get much sympathy if we was to repeat Saturday, it’s no doubt pushed us into the news and we’ve heard more from the club this week in months - it’s silly it come to this, hopefully we don’t need to do so again and we get some positive news on a sale!

That's good buddy, I think you'll get plenty of support and sympathy on Saturday and hopefully you can all look forward to a brighter future soon.
Good luck and keep the faith.

[Rampant Zebra]

7 hours ago, Quart said:

We have no intention of disrupting away games - only when we were on ITV and staff were not paid a day before there was a tennis ball protest away at Eastleigh which ITV covered really well. 
 

I don’t think we would get much sympathy if we was to repeat Saturday, it’s no doubt pushed us into the news and we’ve heard more from the club this week in months - it’s silly it come to this, hopefully we don’t need to do so again and we get some positive news on a sale!

I think getting the game abandoned was stupid and had a negative effect on the situation. Stopping the game for half an hour would have been more effective and not given the EFL such a difficult decision to make. From a Port Vale perspective we now have two consecutive Saturdays without games and have lost two players who could have played against Reading. Protests against club owners shouldn't affect other teams.

[mbycars]

22 hours ago, Rampant Zebra said:

I think getting the game abandoned was stupid and had a negative effect on the situation. Stopping the game for half an hour would have been more effective and not given the EFL such a difficult decision to make. From a Port Vale perspective we now have two consecutive Saturdays without games and have lost two players who could have played against Reading. Protests against club owners shouldn't affect other teams.

Only lost one 😉

[darren1810]

Come on Wigan. 

[Guppys left peg]

The 💩 now 2-0 down to Brum. For some reason I might be tempted to listen to P&G later if this holds…