Embargos, HMRC Payment defaults, non payment of wages, the usual under Dai Wrongge

[JR]

I've tried Joh Howell (although hold only the faintest of hopes that he'll even respond)!

"Dear John,

I hope this email finds you well and recovered from the party's turmoil over the previous few years.

I write a constituent and Reading FC fan to implore you to speak to the Secretary of State for Media, Culture and Sport on our behalf, about the plight our club finds itself in. As I'm sure you are aware our current owner, Dai Yongge, bought the club, with the EFL's permission, in 2017 (despite having failed in a bid for Hull in the years previous, due to the Premier League's view that he was unfit).

Since that point he has overseen an unprecedented decline in the club. Securing record points deductions, fines and embargoes in the process, as what look like it will become two relegations and, bluntly, the death of both the men and women's teams. Given his two previous clubs were both liquidated (Beijing Rehne and KSV Roeselare) and seemingly asset stripped, I have little faith that he will be able to (or has the will to) reverse our current trajectory - particularly in light of his own financial troubles in China.

Please urge your colleagues to intervene before the 7th oldest team in the country is lost, the EFL do not seem to have the ability / power to save us and protect such a valuable community asset for both Berkshire and South Oxfordshire."

I emailed John on Saturday morning and to be fair to his constituency office they replied on Monday.

Unfortunately, it was a response to say don’t worry the Tories are championing an independent football regulator.

Didn’t expect a decent response from one of the most inept MPs you can come across - but a shame they had no desire to show some genuine local compassion in the response.

[Sutekh]

No, because the Independent Commission decide sanctions.

And even if they do, he can just ignore them.

And according to him, and Dayong Pang, he wants to sell and is actively looking for a buyer it's just that these things take time.

There`s taking time and there`s taking fucking forever, he told us to be patient, it`s clear the fans have lost patience.

He's waiting for an FSG or Saudi Prince to come along. Bless.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

And according to him, and Dayong Pang, he wants to sell and is actively looking for a buyer it's just that these things take time.

There`s taking time and there`s taking fucking forever, he told us to be patient, it`s clear the fans have lost patience.

He's waiting for an FSG or Saudi Prince to come along. Bless.

Pretty much yes - it's nothing to do with the club being in "safe hands" it's to do with who puts an offer in that meets his demands. The EFL will make that decision through the Owners & Directors Test.

[Snowflake Royal]

There`s taking time and there`s taking fucking forever, he told us to be patient, it`s clear the fans have lost patience.

He's waiting for an FSG or Saudi Prince to come along. Bless.

Pretty much yes - it's nothing to do with the club being in "safe hands" it's to do with who puts an offer in that meets his demands. The EFL will make that decision through the Owners & Directors Test.

No they won't. Its not a safe hands test. It's an are they actual criminals and can they evidence money test.

Competence and intentions are not a factor.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

He's waiting for an FSG or Saudi Prince to come along. Bless.

Pretty much yes - it's nothing to do with the club being in "safe hands" it's to do with who puts an offer in that meets his demands. The EFL will make that decision through the Owners & Directors Test.

No they won't. Its not a safe hands test. It's an are they actual criminals and can they evidence money test.

Competence and intentions are not a factor.

Yeah that's my point though, sorry if it wasn't very clear. "Safe hands" would be someone who can provide funding and isn't a criminal, obviously they can't test for intentions.

[Sutekh]

Pretty much yes - it's nothing to do with the club being in "safe hands" it's to do with who puts an offer in that meets his demands. The EFL will make that decision through the Owners & Directors Test.

No they won't. Its not a safe hands test. It's an are they actual criminals and can they evidence money test.

Competence and intentions are not a factor.

Yeah that's my point though, sorry if it wasn't very clear. "Safe hands" would be someone who can provide funding and isn't a criminal, obviously they can't test for intentions.

Though they may well try to catch the less intelligent out by asking "what are your intentions for the future of the club.

[Fezza]

I emailed John on Saturday morning and to be fair to his constituency office they replied on Monday.

Unfortunately, it was a response to say don’t worry the Tories are championing an independent football regulator.

Didn’t expect a decent response from one of the most inept MPs you can come across - but a shame they had no desire to show some genuine local compassion in the response.

A pretty tepid response...

Thank you for your email to John regarding Reading Football Club, it has been passed to me for my attention.

We are aware of the issues surrounding Reading FC and appreciate that this is a cause for huge concern and frustration for many constituents who support the club. The government published a White Paper: A Sustainable Future - Reforming Club Football Governance (attached) which addresses these very issues and proposed the introduction of a new independent regulator for English Football. The regulator's strategic purpose will be to ensure that English football is sustainable and resilient, for the benefit of fans and the local communities football clubs serve. Its primary duties will be to ensure the financial sustainability of individual clubs, the overall stability of the football pyramid and to protect the heritage of football clubs that matter most to fans. The regulator will operate a licensing system, where clubs will need a licence to operate as professional football clubs.

Furthermore, new tests for prospective owners and directors of football clubs will be established, aiming to avoid any more unsuitable custodians causing or contributing to problems at the club, and risking harm to fans. The tests will include a fitness and propriety test to ensure integrity of owners and directors, enhanced due diligence of source of wealth for owners and a requirement for robust financial plans for owners. The Government's proposals put fans at the heart of football.

The Government will engage closely with a range of stakeholders as it works towards legislation and finalising policy. John has said that he will follow developments closely and understands that this is an issue close to the hearts of many constituents and has also raised this with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to highlight the issues that Reading fans are currently facing.

With best wishes.

Fiona

Will be responding to Fiona!

[WestYorksRoyal]

Thank you for contacting the Rt. Hon. Stuart Andrew MP about football regulation.
 
The issues you have raised do, of course, relate to Stuart’s position as Minister for Sport, Gambling and Civil Society and therefore your email has been raised with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for a response.

I understand that the Department will be responding to you directly, but please do let me know if you do not receive a response in due course and I can follow up on this for you. 

Useful local MP to have, but I'm not holding my breath for much from DCMS. "We are implementing an independent regulator etc."

[Fezza]

Have replied with...

Dear Fiona,

Thank you for responding on John's behalf.

I'm afraid that the White Paper does little for Reading FC's very immediate plight, especially in light of the EFL's admission yesterday that there is little that they can do if the owner refuses to sell. What is necessary, and has been suggested by Matt Rodda, is Reading being used as a pilot scheme to test the new regulatory system with immediate effect. I urge John to publicly support this and petition the Secretary of State for Media, Culture and Sport, as his colleagues James Sunderland, Sir Alok Sharma, Damian Green and Sir Oliver Heald have.

I appreciate that there is a good deal going on in the World at the moment, much of which will be more important than this. However it does matter a great deal to many of his constituents, and may indeed prove telling for those of us who had become disenchanted with the way the party has been led over the last decade but were looking for a strong reason to support our MP on local issues.

(I removed my initial response about it perhaps being nice if John could be arsed to reply to his own constituents)

[Brogue]

looks like the binning off of the caters is going well the below is a tweet from a daily times reporter who covers the womens game talking about wolves after they played us and we provided the food

“Unfortunately, following the FA Cup victory at Reading on Sunday, a high percentage of our squad have fallen ill which we’ve aligned to the post-match food they received because it’s also affected Reading.”

[Armadillo Roadkill]

I thought the caterers left because they hadn't been paid since the start of the season rather than the club deciding to stop using them.

If any food provided was not prepared and served by trained staff, then I would have thought we'd been in pretty serious food hygiene law related trouble. Surely the levels of incompetence haven't gone that far....

[Brogue]

I thought the caterers left because they hadn't been paid since the start of the season rather than the club deciding to stop using them.

If any food provided was not prepared and served by trained staff, then I would have thought we'd been in pretty serious food hygiene law related trouble. Surely the levels of incompetence haven't gone that far....

you are indeed correct they hadn't been paid so Compass stepped away rather than us 'binning them off' a poor turn of phrase by me. things is, I think this game was held at Aldershots Ground, so i really don't know how involved we are in providing the food. but it makes for good headlines

[RoyalBlue]

Have replied with...

Dear Fiona,

Thank you for responding on John's behalf.

I'm afraid that the White Paper does little for Reading FC's very immediate plight, especially in light of the EFL's admission yesterday that there is little that they can do if the owner refuses to sell. What is necessary, and has been suggested by Matt Rodda, is Reading being used as a pilot scheme to test the new regulatory system with immediate effect. I urge John to publicly support this and petition the Secretary of State for Media, Culture and Sport, as his colleagues James Sunderland, Sir Alok Sharma, Damian Green and Sir Oliver Heald have.

I appreciate that there is a good deal going on in the World at the moment, much of which will be more important than this. However it does matter a great deal to many of his constituents, and may indeed prove telling for those of us who had become disenchanted with the way the party has been led over the last decade but were looking for a strong reason to support our MP on local issues.

(I removed my initial response about it perhaps being nice if John could be arsed to reply to his own constituents)

Should've kept it in with maybe a reminder that your initial letter was addressed to the Organ Grinder and not his Monkey!

He is, of course, likely to be far too taken up with his own party's petty squabbles and stopping small boats on The Thames to engage with his constituents.

[morganb]

Surprise at Bearwood Park today. Director of football operations Mark Bowen decided to speak to the media (first time in months he’s gone on the record). He says he feels more hopeful the sale will happen.

https://twitter.com/JR_1871/status/1748014675768332730

[Snowflake Royal]

Surprise at Bearwood Park today. Director of football operations Mark Bowen decided to speak to the media (first time in months he’s gone on the record). He says he feels more hopeful the sale will happen.

https://twitter.com/JR_1871/status/1748014675768332730

With all respect to Bowen, and I rate him,his pronouncements along these lines have been universally shit.

We'll meet the business plan - we didn't and never seemed to try to.
The sanctions are over - we got another 4 points
He's confident exclusivity could be signed within a couple of weeks and a sale completed early in the New Year - it wasn't and we haven't been.

So I'll be taking that with a fistful of salt, let alone a pinch.

[Vision]

Surprise at Bearwood Park today. Director of football operations Mark Bowen decided to speak to the media (first time in months he’s gone on the record). He says he feels more hopeful the sale will happen.

https://twitter.com/JR_1871/status/1748014675768332730

With all respect to Bowen, and I rate him,his pronouncements along these lines have been universally shit.

We'll meet the business plan - we didn't and never seemed to try to.
The sanctions are over - we got another 4 points
He's confident exclusivity could be signed within a couple of weeks and a sale completed early in the New Year - it wasn't and we haven't been.

So I'll be taking that with a fistful of salt, let alone a pinch.

Yeah I know it's a tough job keeping up morale but that first one did it for me. He subsequently said he knew all along the business plan wouldn't work.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Surprise at Bearwood Park today. Director of football operations Mark Bowen decided to speak to the media (first time in months he’s gone on the record). He says he feels more hopeful the sale will happen.

https://twitter.com/JR_1871/status/1748014675768332730

With all respect to Bowen, and I rate him,his pronouncements along these lines have been universally shit.

We'll meet the business plan - we didn't and never seemed to try to.
The sanctions are over - we got another 4 points
He's confident exclusivity could be signed within a couple of weeks and a sale completed early in the New Year - it wasn't and we haven't been.

So I'll be taking that with a fistful of salt, let alone a pinch.

The difficulty he has though is he probably isn't responsible for the latter 2 points there. From his point of view, the sanctions were over, we just had an owner who thought differently. Same with the sale, he was probably kept up to date, so was probably just speaking about what he knew at the time, but knowing that he had no influence over whatsoever, so I feel for him a bit.

He's been put in a bit of a lose-lose situation for me. If he doesn't speak to us directly, he gets his name thrown through the mud like the rest of them for being silent. He does say something about the current situation, it could all blow up in front of him (as it has) which he has no control over.

In regards to the business plan, if he knew we'd never meet it, I wonder what the thinking was? Try and get the "best" squad possible in the Championship and hope we can survive knowing we would effectively be starting the season at -6 points. I do wonder when Ince actually found out, Bowen would have known for sure we weren't going to meet it by the end of the summer window, I wonder if he told Ince then "Paul, it's likely we will get the deduction applied this year, so we need to get 6 extra points from somewhere".

[72 bus]

Surprise at Bearwood Park today. Director of football operations Mark Bowen decided to speak to the media (first time in months he’s gone on the record). He says he feels more hopeful the sale will happen.

https://twitter.com/JR_1871/status/1748014675768332730

He looks like he's having a breakdown in that picture.

[tmesis]

In regards to the business plan, if he knew we'd never meet it, I wonder what the thinking was? Try and get the "best" squad possible in the Championship and hope we can survive knowing we would effectively be starting the season at -6 points. I do wonder when Ince actually found out, Bowen would have known for sure we weren't going to meet it by the end of the summer window, I wonder if he told Ince then "Paul, it's likely we will get the deduction applied this year, so we need to get 6 extra points from somewhere".

All signings were made to an agreed business plan, so they must have felt it was achieveable.

Wasn't there a belief certain players would be sold in the January window last year, and it was that not happening which caused the failure?

Anybody know how much we missed it by?

[Sutekh]

https://twitter.com/JR_1871/status/1748014675768332730

With all respect to Bowen, and I rate him,his pronouncements along these lines have been universally shit.

We'll meet the business plan - we didn't and never seemed to try to.
The sanctions are over - we got another 4 points
He's confident exclusivity could be signed within a couple of weeks and a sale completed early in the New Year - it wasn't and we haven't been.

So I'll be taking that with a fistful of salt, let alone a pinch.

Yeah I know it's a tough job keeping up morale but that first one did it for me. He subsequently said he knew all along the business plan wouldn't work.

TBF he had to pretend it'd work otherwise the club would have been relegated to L1