Agents have naturally looked elsewhere for their clients. The club now want to add 10 to 12 players but have missed out on targets because of the embargo. Reading still face severe restrictions around paying fees owing to previous breaches.
CASHFLOW BOARD GAME REVIEW FREE
While under the embargo they were limited to signing free agents, unable to pay agents and could offer players a maximum of £1,400 a week. Reading owed about £500,000 to clubs from whom they loaned players last season but settled that last week. Two other factors had been behind the embargo: breaching the terms of a business plan agreed in November 2021 after breaking the English Football League’s profit and sustainability rules and failing to pay clubs for loaned players. The hearing, scheduled for 9 August, should now pass without note. Then a transfer embargo was lifted on Wednesday after Reading paid an outstanding £500,000 to HM Revenue and Customs, which had served the club with a winding-up petition over unpaid tax. A few glimmers of light arrived this week, first when Reading’s academy regained Category One status after satisfying the Football Association their debts were in hand. In recent weeks Dai has effectively drip-fed payments to lift some of the gloom. Photograph: Matt Watson/Southampton FC/Getty Images Rubén Sellés took charge of Reading’s men’s team on Friday after waiting for his work visa. The fear is that Reading have been left firmly behind by their promotion rivals.
The former Southampton interim manager Rubén Sellés, appointed after talks with Chris Wilder broke down, was at the training camp in Spain, getting to know the squad, but was not able to take any sessions because his work visa was not approved until this week. So too is Paul Ince, who was sacked in April, still being listed as first-team manager on the club’s website. It is symptomatic of Reading’s troubles that their flight from a pre-season training camp in Alicante was cancelled last week, leaving the squad to make their way back to England in dribs and drabs and prompting their friendly at Bristol City to be cancelled at short notice. Thirteen players were released, including Grace Moloney, who had been at the club for 14 years. The entire club has been affected by dropping into League One, with the women’s team going part-time after relegation from the Women’s Super League. Since reaching the Championship playoff final in 2017, Reading have been in steady decline, circling the drain almost every season until being relegated in May.
Local MPs, including Theresa May, recently raised concerns with the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, Lucy Frazer. “Throw money at it, and possibly with better advice so that we bought more appropriate players at the time, the gamble might have paid off and we might have been in the Premier League by now.”īut it didn’t. “It’s legalised gambling,” says Paula Martin, chair of the Supporters Trust at Reading of the financial approach. They also face the threat of another points deduction due to failing to pay wages on time.ĭai, who made his fortune turning disused air-raid shelters into shopping malls in China, has spent about £250m in the six years since he and his sister, Dai Xiu Li, acquired Reading but aside from a sleek training facility, he has very little to show for it. They have a threadbare squad with a handful of fit senior players, a disillusioned fanbase and a manager who took charge on Friday, 18 days after being appointed, because of delays obtaining a work permit.
Three weeks out from a first season in the third tier since 2001-02, they are playing catch-up. A thirst to hurriedly elevate Reading to the Premier League, after a near-miss six years ago, has spectacularly backfired.
It is said to be one of the Reading owner Dai Yongge’s go-to phrases, one that can seem foolish at the best of times, let alone amid the club’s current strife.
0 kommentar(er)
