The Debt

[Ian Royal]

I fail to see how Royal Elm Park would make the club less attractive to buy.... I would much rather buy a club that is at the heart of a busy commercial and residential centre than one on a naff skirt of town with a muddy car park.

I am also under the impression that the contracts that were written up for the development included a clause that ensures Reading Football Club have a stake in the development going forward, regardless of the thai's owning the club. I remember reading something about it when the plans were on display.

REP is being built by a company part owned by the Thais and part by RFC. SO THEORETICALLY RFC stands to benefit hugely.
But RFC is also owned by the Thais so they COULD pile all the costs into the RFC side and all the profits into the non RFC side.
I don't think this would happen, but as they own the club and the 18 companies associated with it they can do what they want.

Well lets hope the FA did their job when they conducted the fit and proper ownership interviews!

They're checks for criminal convictions and little else.

[Dennis the Butler]

Some of the posters on here need to take a serious history lesson in Reading Football Club, pre SJM .. personnally I don't begrudge the guy a damn thing .. as far as I'm concerned he saved the football club without doubt !

[Elm Park Kid]

What you've got to understand is that when a club is 100% privately owned then the level of 'debt' it has is largely irrelevant - what's important is how much the club has to spend. It's like if you ask your wife to buy a new car on her credit card when you've got £1M in the bank - the only time the credit card bill is a problem is if your wife has less disposable income because of it. It doesn't even matter if they sell the club because the debt just means the price they would get for it would be lower.

The big concern is whether money is siphoned out of the club in order to pay for the owners other business pursuits. Given the finances of Championship football teams I highly doubt that there's any spare money to siphon off - but if so then you can legitimately ask whether you are happy paying money into a club just to help the owners get richer.

[Maneki Neko]

unless the debt outsrips the value of the club meaning we find it difficult to sell/only attract shysters