Reading fans planning to protest amid concerns of a ‘breakdown’ in takeover talks

Reading fans and group Sell Before We Dai reveal they are planning to protest amid concerns of a ‘breakdown’ in takeover talks.

It comes following a report by The Athletic, the ex-Wycombe Wanderers owner Rob Couhig has seen his attempts to buy the League One club stall.

Since August, Couhig and his business partner Todd Trosclair were hoping that a deal would be done, having already lent the club more than £5million ($6.6m).

Now it’s claimed that a series of deadlines to sign the agreement have passed, with there alleged fears the takeover won’t happen.

On a night when 28,000 turn up to watch a game in English football’s third tier, there’s bad news elsewhere in League One. Rob Couhig’s takeover of Reading has hit the rocks. Worrying times for the club, as his loans have kept them going this summer. https://t.co/PuyKVxQMBc

— Matt Slater (@mjshrimper) September 16, 2024

Obviously we have seen the report in The Athletic.

It is significant in that it is the first report that has referred to a breakdown in talks and includes some detail on loan amounts, but there’s also no real “new news” and no comment from Couhig or club.

𝗜𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁…

— Sell Before We Dai (@SellBeforeWeDai) September 17, 2024

Sell Before We Dai published a statement, saying: “Obviously we have seen the report in The Athletic.

“It is significant in that it is the first report that has referred to a breakdown in talks and includes some detail on loan amounts, but there’s also no real “new news” and no comment from Couhig or club.

“𝗜𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗽𝘀𝗲𝗱.

“However, we have now started planning for action.

“The first step of which is to get as clear a picture as possible of what is going on.

“We have reached out to Mr Couhig, the EFL and independent financial experts who can help us fully understand the current agreements in place.

“TL:DR don’t mani, find facts.”

In May, Couhig sold the Chairboys to billionaire Mikhail Lomtadze, then subsequently just months after he held talks with Reading on buying Bearwood training ground for Wycombe, only to then opt out, he’s now looking to be the saviour for Reading and takeover from Dai Yongge.

Couhig, Trosclair and their families have only boosted Reading fans’ hopes, turning up to the game against Wigan, then Couhig changed his profile picture to make it seem as though a deal was very close to being announced.

It’s seemingly gone quiet however, updates have dried up, with The Athletic saying a final agreement has proved elusive, with both sides blaming each other for the impasse.

Reading currently sit 12th in the third tier, with 7 points from 5 games, but unless the takeover goes through, the club will continue with their small squad, concerns over their future, late payment in wages and tax.

For 2023/24, Reading finished 17th with 53 points but had been deducted one point for failing to pay players on time and in full on three occasions in the 2022–23 season, another 3-point deduction was applied in September, for failing to deposit wages on time, and another 2-point deduction was applied in February, due to late HMRC payments.

Here’s the reaction on social media with Reading fans planning to protest amid concerns of a ‘breakdown’ in takeover talks…

@deanocx: Make Huddersfield (h) live on Sky absolute carnage

@MikePea73444529: Fully respect what you are saying here. I think you guys have the same concerns here. There has to be a big question mark here over Yongge’s true intentions. We need Howe to provide an urgent update.

@CalvinRFC1971: Huddersfield A-A.

@RoyalTillTheEnd: Surely it’s time to protest right outside their homes. We’re being played for mugs. He clearly doesn’t want to sell.

@Nozzzaaaaa: This is just so infuriating, heartbreaking, and soul destroying rolled into one. I hope @RCouhig can still dig deep & turn this around for us but sadly we all know what a complete asshat (the nicest word i could think of that wouldn’t get me banned) Dai Yongge is 🙁

WestYorksRoyal: The article says “stalled”, not “broken down”. People had been joining the dots and figuring out that the issue was with Dai responding, and this article confirms that. I stand that the clock is ticking on Dai. He won’t be able to pay back the money loaned, so he can do this the easy way and sell, or the hard way and have it seized off him. Definitely an annoyance that money like the Azeez sale and Olise sell on should be used to invest in the club but Dai is using it to cling on and spin out this saga.

Sutekh: FFS when is he going to get out of the club?

Stranded: So, if that report is accurate and The Athletic is normally pretty solid – then we are in a prolonged period again of treading water until Dai decides to do something, or a continued slow decay if he doesn’t. In other words, the status quo.

Snowflake Royal: I’m not sure what there is for it to be right about. It has no new information, nothing actually attributable. We’ve known for weeks that there’s a hold up in the final sign off and Dai is being his usual unhelpful and uncommunicative self. We know the Olise and Azeez money has been helping us keep going and Couhig and co have put in substantial money to contribute to that as well. We know from our itks like EPR that even the people in the club who should be itk don’t know what’s going on any more.

Armadillo Roadkill: The NYT is reliable and responsible, and this is not good news. Confidently quoting the size of the loans made suggests there is an actually source to this story, and it’s not just put together from things already in the public domain. My belief all the way through is that it was more to do with timezones, priorities etc. I just couldn’t believe it was down to Dai’s malfeasance, as that’s just irrational and self-destructive. It seems I was being too generous to him. The only real conclusion to be drawn is that, until new ownership is credibly and verifiably confirmed (sorry, confimred), the worst seems about as likely as the best.

Elm Park Kid:
Just to restate what the overall assumption is then:
– The club now has enough money to run until Christmas without any additional sums from Dai. Mainly thanks to Olise sale and just the fact that the club gets given tv and season ticket money upfront.
– Dai has decided to not sign off on the deal that he came to with Couhig for whatever reason. Maybe he is hoping to get more money.
– Both Couhig and the previous consortium loaned the club money to keep the show on the road over the summer. They now have enough legal control to ensure that Dai can’t just liquidate the club.
– There is no obvious logical reason (beyond rumours about ‘pride’) why Dai would put the club into administration. He would simply lose control and a lot of money.

Royal_jimmy: Hard to understand what Dai actually gets out of holding the club. Realistically we aren’t going up anytime soon we’ll either stay in league one or drop further without investment which he obviously isn’t committed to. The longer he holds on, the less he’s going to get.
This is certainly a blow for us and we need to turn up the heat with protests that;
1) Show that we approve of Couhig
2) Continue to support the players who have been through so much crap
3) Give further bad publicity to Dai
Fortunately as other posters have said we are ok financially for now with the Olise and Azeez money + Couhig’s benevolence in keeping the club afloat. If we didn’t have that we’d be finished.

Clyde1998: Probably the most likely route away from Dai’s ownership is via administration. I don’t know if Couhig could recall the loan to cause that to happen. Seem to recall it was reported there was some clause that Couhig would get all the shares in the club in the event of a default; may be mis-remembering though.

Sutekh: Still stuck in the Status Quo. The club may have broken the rules and still be going down the dustpipe, while burning bridges, but there’s always hope we can stop being accident prone, sinking down down, deeper and down with everything landing jam side down and that Dai will eventually accept what Rob’s proposing and we all get whatever we want while living on an island. But for the 4500th time why it’s taking so long to get to the end is a complete mystery song and I just wish we could enjoy the wild side of life again. Hoping he doesn’t need a piledriver to get him to realise that he can’t stand the heat any more.