TAKEOVER *NOT* CONFIMRED

[72 bus]

Just listened to Nigel Howe on the podcast, it would seem some prospective buyers are surprised they`re not getting the hotel too and some are concerned that we could lose all the car parking space when the royal elm park development finally starts, said he hoped they could buy that too, fukks sake how realistic is that?

People shouldn't be driving to games anyway, it is bad for the environment.

Who said they want it to use as a car park? - probably want to do some building development before selling the club on less the car park, not realising the Thai's already did that

Seriously though, If a prospective buyer isn't aware of what they're actually buying that is a cause for concern.

Also, with the car park - wasn't there some suggestion that as part of the building plans free buses would be provided or something, If so that should be picked up by the Thai developers, but wouldn't surprise me if they got the club to agree to fund all that before they sold it.

There are plans for each bus to do two runs so your options will be get there far too early or hang around after the game, the club will also lose the revenue from the matchday parking.

[Forbury Lion]

People shouldn't be driving to games anyway, it is bad for the environment.

Who said they want it to use as a car park? - probably want to do some building development before selling the club on less the car park, not realising the Thai's already did that

Seriously though, If a prospective buyer isn't aware of what they're actually buying that is a cause for concern.

Also, with the car park - wasn't there some suggestion that as part of the building plans free buses would be provided or something, If so that should be picked up by the Thai developers, but wouldn't surprise me if they got the club to agree to fund all that before they sold it.

There are plans for each bus to do two runs so your options will be get there far too early or hang around after the game, the club will also lose the revenue from the matchday parking.

Presumably the club have to pay rent to the land owners though as they don't own the car park?
Part of the car park is leased out to companies on Green Park outside of the match times as most of the offices don't have enough parking spaces to meet demands. Nice bit of revenue for the club (I hope, rather than the land owners).

[WestYorksRoyal]

One thing from Howe's interview yesterday and Bowen's statement is that a lot of our value (probation the vast majority of it) is in our real estate. Without that, you have a loss making L1 football club. It must mean loads of interested parties are totally unsuited; we don't need a real estate developer. Hopefully the interested parties progressing have better intentions.

[windermereROYAL]

To quote Mark Bowen
"There have been an extremely high number of enquiries with some primarily focused on the clubs real estate assets"

[Royalwaster]

Was talking to a friend who is involved in board of a national league team - and he told me what virtually all teams in the league are loss making and need a financial injection of around £1million each year. I found that staggering ..

[Dirk Gently]

Was talking to a friend who is involved in board of a national league team - and he told me what virtually all teams in the league are loss making and need a financial injection of around £1million each year. I found that staggering ..

Don't want to be rude, but are you new here?

Football's financial model is irrevocably broken, and very, very few clubs break even - and those that do typically aren't in contention for winning anything.

[WestYorksRoyal]

How many times have we been asked to be patient in the past year? The statement about manager / player recruitment last June? One about investment/ a sale in September? After Vale got abandoned in January?

Surely at some point they need to stop asking for patience and just end this fcuking shitshow?

Also find it very hard to take statements at face value. Perhaps Bowen's message is just a genuine heart felt thank you, but normally statements precede bad news.

[Armadillo Roadkill]

Was talking to a friend who is involved in board of a national league team - and he told me what virtually all teams in the league are loss making and need a financial injection of around £1million each year. I found that staggering ..

Don't want to be rude, but are you new here?

Football's financial model is irrevocably broken, and very, very few clubs break even - and those that do typically aren't in contention for winning anything.

Be fair. Not many people will realise that the owners of a national league team need to spend a million just to keep their clubs afloat. That is staggering, no matter how familiar you are with the crazy finances of English football.

[morganb]

Mark Bowen's statement: https://www.readingfc.co.uk/news/2024/m ... ark-bowen/

A MESSAGE FROM OUR HEAD OF FOOTBALL OPERATIONS HEADING INTO THE FINAL 10 GAMES OF THE SEASON.

Another hugely difficult week for the club, the players, the staff and also for you, our fantastic fans, has just passed.

What never ceases to amaze me is the uncompromising support you always give us.

I feel now is the perfect time to say a heartfelt thanks to you all, from Rubén, the players and myself.

To see almost 1400 fans travel all the way to Carlisle, on a cold, wet, late winter's Saturday, to make sure that our team have the huge vocal support that inevitably pushed them on to an important success was amazing, just amazing!

And with ten games to go, in order to secure our League One status, that TOGETHERNESS which I'm sure we can all feel is going to be of big significance.

The sale of the Club is progressing, with the help and expertise of Nigel Howe. There have been an extremely high volume of enquiries, with some primarily focused on the Club’s real estate assets – notably the Select Car Leasing Stadium and Bearwood Park. Whilst every proposal is considered, the primary focus for Nigel and Mr Dai is to sell all assets and the Club inclusively – so we must be patient in allowing the correct process to be followed. I know Nigel is keeping STAR regularly informed and I thank them for their support with our communication.

This fabulous club has 152 years of history behind it, and I know that we can all play a big part in creating a successful future as well.

So I say again, with just ten games remaining a BIG THANK YOU to ALL of our supporters!

Keep doing what you're doing!

Mark Bowen

[WestYorksRoyal]

Feels like the noise is ramping up. Hopefully we'll have some genuine progress in the next couple of weeks.

[windermereROYAL]

Feels like the noise is ramping up. Hopefully we'll have some genuine progress in the next couple of weeks.

Yes I agree, certainly seems to be more communications coming out of the club now compared to before Christmas, we can hope.

[Stranded]

To quote Mark Bowen
"There have been an extremely high number of enquiries with some primarily focused on the clubs real estate assets"

Why are you shocked?

The club has a lot of relatively high net worth real estate assets and a currently L1 football team. Any investor in the club will be aware that the real estate is where they can make money by utilising it better - i.e. the stadium could be used more in the summer for concerts/events etc - fair to say anybody looking to buy the club will want to ensure that they are getting the real estate too and not just the money pit.

[blythspartan]

Tbf, not a bad message from Bowen. I thought there were undertones of trying to rally up more fans to attend games, which is a good thing as money is going to be very tight until we get new owners.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Feels like the noise is ramping up. Hopefully we'll have some genuine progress in the next couple of weeks.

Yes I agree, certainly seems to be more communications coming out of the club now compared to before Christmas, we can hope.

Think if it all comes to nothing we'll know soon too. Crunch couple of weeks.

[Royalwaster]

Was talking to a friend who is involved in board of a national league team - and he told me what virtually all teams in the league are loss making and need a financial injection of around £1million each year. I found that staggering ..

Don't want to be rude, but are you new here?

Football's financial model is irrevocably broken, and very, very few clubs break even - and those that do typically aren't in contention for winning anything.

Be fair. Not many people will realise that the owners of a national league team need to spend a million just to keep their clubs afloat. That is staggering, no matter how familiar you are with the crazy finances of English football.

Thanks - that's the point I was making ... was shocked that even non-league clubs were making these kind of losses with some clubs even still being semi-professional.

[Sutekh]

Don't want to be rude, but are you new here?

Football's financial model is irrevocably broken, and very, very few clubs break even - and those that do typically aren't in contention for winning anything.

Be fair. Not many people will realise that the owners of a national league team need to spend a million just to keep their clubs afloat. That is staggering, no matter how familiar you are with the crazy finances of English football.

Thanks - that's the point I was making ... was shocked that even non-league clubs were making these kind of losses with some clubs even still being semi-professional.

Really not surprised given the insane number of clubs that retain professionalism on relegation to non-league let alone the silly number that turn professional while still in the non-league system. Perhaps the leagues should insist that no club below tier 4 be allowed to be professional.

Surprised more clubs aren't going under given the complete insanity of it all, if only we could scrap the PL and start over...

[tmesis]

Be fair. Not many people will realise that the owners of a national league team need to spend a million just to keep their clubs afloat. That is staggering, no matter how familiar you are with the crazy finances of English football.

Thanks - that's the point I was making ... was shocked that even non-league clubs were making these kind of losses with some clubs even still being semi-professional.

Really not surprised given the insane number of clubs that retain professionalism on relegation to non-league let alone the silly number that turn professional while still in the non-league system. Perhaps the leagues should insist that no club below tier 4 be allowed to be professional.

Surprised more clubs aren't going under given the complete insanity of it all, if only we could scrap the PL and start over...

Weirdly, for some clubs it's actually cheaper to be full time rather than part-time.

Part-time players are less likely to move to be near(er) the club, and the club will then have to pay them travel expenses - and those can be higher than the difference in full-time compared to part-time wages.

Non-league clubs do have one advantage, in that contracts are typically much shorter, so they are much less likely to be stuck with bad buys for 3-4 years like we were. The flipside to that is that clubs can face a mass exodus of players if things go wrong.

There's nothing new about clubs overspending. The difference is the sums involved now make it much harder for a local businessman to step in and buy the club when things go wrong. We have rules in place to hit clubs that have grossly overspent and failed. Maybe if we had rules to stop clubs who grossly overspend and succeed, we'd stop people trying.

[Snowflake Royal]

Feels like the noise is ramping up. Hopefully we'll have some genuine progress in the next couple of weeks.

Yes I agree, certainly seems to be more communications coming out of the club now compared to before Christmas, we can hope.

I feel like I've read these posts every two weeks for the last 6 weeks.

[Armadillo Roadkill]

Thing is about the communications, there was a massive and justifiable complaint that we never heard anything.

The club now provides updates regularly, both via Bowen publicly, and from other officials via Star.

If they don’t make stuff up and if things are taking a long time, the comms will either dry up or be similar in content until there is big news to announce.

I prefer the regular comms, even if there’s not much progress to report just yet.

[Greatwesternline]

People shouldn't be driving to games anyway, it is bad for the environment.

Who said they want it to use as a car park? - probably want to do some building development before selling the club on less the car park, not realising the Thai's already did that

Seriously though, If a prospective buyer isn't aware of what they're actually buying that is a cause for concern.

Also, with the car park - wasn't there some suggestion that as part of the building plans free buses would be provided or something, If so that should be picked up by the Thai developers, but wouldn't surprise me if they got the club to agree to fund all that before they sold it.

There are plans for each bus to do two runs so your options will be get there far too early or hang around after the game, the club will also lose the revenue from the matchday parking.

Put on decent street food and bars outside the ground and spending an extra hour at the stadium after a game wouldnt be the end of the world for many. What is there to get home to on a Saturday? I've been a "home" fan at the new White Hart Lane, and at the Amex, and both clubs go to considerable lengths to monetise their supporters after the games, which also helps to reduce congestion after the games as well.