Coventry - back from the lame: drawing, drawing Reading

[brendywendy]

-they probably have gone down sinse then considering we used to lose 6 million a season at that point.

A lot of that was down to decent bonuses for players and staff for promotion, up to £1m for a top individual, and I seem to recall JM saying that the bonuses had been set too high. Once again I am happy to be proved wrong.

nope pretty sure it was 4/5/6 million for th efew seasons before that too , when we didnt go up.
i remember us needing 15000 in through the gates a week to break even, and we were only getting 13000 crowds.
(which in itself is a good indicator how the clubh has grown- we seem quite upset about getting 15000 now)

[FiNeRaIn]

[
Think you need to take a closer look at the other clubs finances FR

Sheff Utd, Ipswich etc will be league 1 and in adminstration within a couple of years.

Still waiting for the day the 90 odd other league teams all go bust and become extinct so we win something.

That hasn't happened to one of them yet...as said, look at portsmouth.

[brendywendy]

would you really want to be portsmouth?
charlton?
southhampton?
norwich?
leeds?
etc
etc

none bust yet- but the hell theyve had to go through has been huge.
im perfectly happy with the way weve managed our drop into the championship fanks

[FiNeRaIn]

Gotta love how spending a few million on required players would automatically render us bankrupt and relegated. Its as if there is no medium. If we are not financially secure enough, especially after receiving 7 million on sig in august on top of 20 million in the last few seasons to spend 2-3 million in january, we quite frankly are an awfully run club and the fans have every right to ask where the money went.

[PEARCEY]

Gotta love how spending a few million on required players would automatically render us bankrupt and relegated. Its as if there is no medium. If we are not financially secure enough, especially after receiving 7 million on sig in august on top of 20 million in the last few seasons to spend 2-3 million in january, we quite frankly are an awfully run club and the fans have every right to ask where the money went.

I'm with you on this. I can't recall there being this black hole when Madejski gave Burns significant monies to spend on players when we were languishing in the lower divisions and constantly posting losses. Madejski lost his interest when he was scared shitless when we made the Premiership. He says he's wanted out ever since. Yet still he remains Chairman. Whys that Sir John? Asking for too much to sell the club maybe?

[facaldaqui]

Gotta love how spending a few million on required players would automatically render us bankrupt and relegated. Its as if there is no medium. If we are not financially secure enough, especially after receiving 7 million on sig in august on top of 20 million in the last few seasons to spend 2-3 million in january, we quite frankly are an awfully run club and the fans have every right to ask where the money went.

I'm with you on this. I can't recall there being this black hole when Madejski gave Burns significant monies to spend on players when we were languishing in the lower divisions and constantly posting losses. Madejski lost his interest when he was scared shitless when we made the Premiership. He says he's wanted out ever since. Yet still he remains Chairman. Whys that Sir John? Asking for too much to sell the club maybe?

I'm happy for Madejski to stay until he finds a buyer that will be good for the club. Most potential buyers are not good for the club, if they are like the ones that have bought other clubs, such as Portsmouth, Watford, Cardiff, etc. There are two main pitfalls: 1. A new owner, maybe from abroad, who uses us as a financial toy and strips assets. 2. A new owner who overreaches, overspends, and after a tallyho season or two when we sign better players, leaves us up to our ears in depth with no choice but to try and regroup in a lower division. Even so, I still think Madejski could give McDermott more freedom to develop the team.

[Ian Royal]

Gotta love how spending a few million on required players would automatically render us bankrupt and relegated. Its as if there is no medium. If we are not financially secure enough, especially after receiving 7 million on sig in august on top of 20 million in the last few seasons to spend 2-3 million in january, we quite frankly are an awfully run club and the fans have every right to ask where the money went.

It's about expectation & practicality. Do it once and you have to keep doing it.

We finish in the top six and fail to go up, we have to spend big to maintain that next season, because it's so easy for other clubs to spend big and over take us, and once you've spent big once even the more conservative fans won't accept not continuing to do it.

And if we do go up, we have to spend even bigger to have a decent chance of staying there. And the same the next season, ad infinitum.

That's how you get in the mess those clubs are. It's hard enough to be stable without doing it as we've shown.

Or, we can keep running a tight ship trying to slowly accumulate a side good enough that with a much smaller push will still make it, with about as minimal risk of financial trouble as is possible in football. There's a larger chance of relegation short term, but probably a better chance of avoiding one or even two relegations long term. Especially with Madejski unwilling or unable, depending on who you believe, to seriously bankroll us.

[under the tin]

Gotta love how spending a few million on required players would automatically render us bankrupt and relegated. Its as if there is no medium. If we are not financially secure enough, especially after receiving 7 million on sig in august on top of 20 million in the last few seasons to spend 2-3 million in january, we quite frankly are an awfully run club and the fans have every right to ask where the money went.

It's about expectation & practicality. Do it once and you have to keep doing it.

We finish in the top six and fail to go up, we have to spend big to maintain that next season, because it's so easy for other clubs to spend big and over take us,...........
Until the league bring in new legislation barring other clubs from spending more than Reading, then we have to accept this as a fact of life in trying to run a professional football club in a competitive environment. If you can't stand the heat, you have to ask yourself what business you have in the kitchen.

Or, we can keep running a tight ship trying to slowly accumulate a side good enough that with a much smaller push will still make it, ....... Especially with Madejski unwilling or unable, depending on who you believe, to seriously bankroll us.

Sure, we did it once, Ian, but IMHO, we kinda fluked it. It was like a Hollywood plot line, a bunch of misfits, failures, and unknowns from other clubs being brought together to smash this league, and eventually rise to 8th in the country.
Remember, at that time, we had a chairman who was in a position to put monies in, and he did. £100K Ingi, £150K Kitson, etc.
Now we no longer have that chairman, which, in my view, makes it even less likely to see lightning strike twice in the same place.

[Hoop Blah]

-they probably have gone down sinse then considering we used to lose 6 million a season at that point.

A lot of that was down to decent bonuses for players and staff for promotion, up to £1m for a top individual, and I seem to recall JM saying that the bonuses had been set too high. Once again I am happy to be proved wrong.

Brendy, I may well be wrong on the wages front, WR seems to be pretty sure of that and I'd trust he's not making that up or off on a whim about it. I'd still be surprised though. Leigterwood and Kishanishvili might be taking home more than that but I'd expect we're relatively tight on the wages front.

Last time we went up I'm pretty sure we were well under the £10k a week bracket (until promotion was secured and we started handing out new contracts that is), but with increases factored in for going up.

Not sure where you get those bonus figures from HSSC, the players were moaning a lot at the time that they didn't get a decent bonus for going up. Hahnemann specifically was quite vocal about it, and I seem to recall they only got something like £15k per player for going up. Their own fault for negotiating those bonus' of course.

[brendywendy]

Gotta love how spending a few million on required players would automatically render us bankrupt and relegated. Its as if there is no medium. If we are not financially secure enough, especially after receiving 7 million on sig in august on top of 20 million in the last few seasons to spend 2-3 million in january, we quite frankly are an awfully run club and the fans have every right to ask where the money went.

look at the oxf*rd accounts.

+

if there is only the 7 million, and we had to save 4 million theres only 3 left, weve bought new players, and payed them, so thats another million +, so theres only 2 million left.id imagine after perservering with the current strikers for half a season, and it not working brian will spend 1 of the remaining 2 million on a striker in jan.

[brendywendy]

I can't recall there being this black hole when Madejski gave Burns significant monies to spend on players when we were languishing in the lower divisions and constantly posting losses.

you dont remember a blacvk hole, but also at the same time remember us posting losses every year.........


he had more money then, and not all tied up in struggling businesses for starters.

[brendywendy]

Gotta love how spending a few million on required players would automatically render us bankrupt and relegated. Its as if there is no medium. If we are not financially secure enough, especially after receiving 7 million on sig in august on top of 20 million in the last few seasons to spend 2-3 million in january, we quite frankly are an awfully run club and the fans have every right to ask where the money went.

It's about expectation & practicality. Do it once and you have to keep doing it.

We finish in the top six and fail to go up, we have to spend big to maintain that next season, because it's so easy for other clubs to spend big and over take us,...........
Until the league bring in new legislation barring other clubs from spending more than Reading, then we have to accept this as a fact of life in trying to run a professional football club in a competitive environment. If you can't stand the heat, you have to ask yourself what business you have in the kitchen.

Or, we can keep running a tight ship trying to slowly accumulate a side good enough that with a much smaller push will still make it, ....... Especially with Madejski unwilling or unable, depending on who you believe, to seriously bankroll us.

Sure, we did it once, Ian, but IMHO, we kinda fluked it. It was like a Hollywood plot line, a bunch of misfits, failures, and unknowns from other clubs being brought together to smash this league, and eventually rise to 8th in the country.
Remember, at that time, we had a chairman who was in a position to put monies in, and he did. £100K Ingi, £150K Kitson, etc.
Now we no longer have that chairman, which, in my view, makes it even less likely to see lightning strike twice in the same place.

should be made into a oxf*rd movie

[brendywendy]

-they probably have gone down sinse then considering we used to lose 6 million a season at that point.

A lot of that was down to decent bonuses for players and staff for promotion, up to £1m for a top individual, and I seem to recall JM saying that the bonuses had been set too high. Once again I am happy to be proved wrong.

Brendy, I may well be wrong on the wages front, WR seems to be pretty sure of that and I'd trust he's not making that up or off on a whim about it. I'd still be surprised though. Leigterwood and Kishanishvili might be taking home more than that but I'd expect we're relatively tight on the wages front.

Last time we went up I'm pretty sure we were well under the £10k a week bracket (until promotion was secured and we started handing out new contracts that is), but with increases factored in for going up.

Not sure where you get those bonus figures from HSSC, the players were moaning a lot at the time that they didn't get a decent bonus for going up. Hahnemann specifically was quite vocal about it, and I seem to recall they only got something like £15k per player for going up. Their own fault for negotiating those bonus' of course.

i may be wrong but im sure our best players were on 15k, cos when sidwell refused to negotiate a new one when we went up that was what he was on the next year.

[Hoop Blah]

I think a lot of the contracts included massive increases in salary if we got promoted, but I thought Sidwells original new offer was something like £15-18K which eventually went up and up as we tried to convince him to stay on the back of his excellent form.

Our wage bill the year we went up was only something like £12m I think, so I doubt any player was getting close to £500k.

Edit: http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/s/200 ... r_dividend

[Who Moved The Goalposts?]

if there is only the 7 million, and we had to save 4 million theres only 3 left, weve bought new players, and payed them, so thats another million +, so theres only 2 million left.id imagine after perservering with the current strikers for half a season, and it not working brian will spend 1 of the remaining 2 million on a striker in jan.

Not wishing to sound like a scratched record, but....

The £4m hold was anounced before the season's trading had begun, prior to Marek, Cisse and Rasiak all going. There's a lot more than £3m left when you take this into account. Of course, most will be held back to account for next season's black hole, which should be smaller than this years by some margin. Expect BM to receive little if anything in January, and only little in the summer - we don't have many saleable assests left.

[brendywendy]

if there is only the 7 million, and we had to save 4 million theres only 3 left, weve bought new players, and payed them, so thats another million +, so theres only 2 million left.id imagine after perservering with the current strikers for half a season, and it not working brian will spend 1 of the remaining 2 million on a striker in jan.

Not wishing to sound like a scratched record, but....

The £4m hold was anounced before the season's trading had begun, prior to Marek, Cisse and Rasiak all going. There's a lot more than £3m left when you take this into account. Of course, most will be held back to account for next season's black hole, which should be smaller than this years by some margin. Expect BM to receive little if anything in January, and only little in the summer - we don't have many saleable assests left.

my maffs was pretty basic tbf!

agreed with extra sales, and wages gone, we should be better off than 1-2 million.
and also hoping that by next season our black hole will be negligible.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

In case you're interested:

http://www.footballeconomy.com/content/ ... ldings-plc

Not all figures available, but under JM reign i reckon he invested over £30m to cover trading losses getting us to the Premiership

[Snowball]

In case you're interested:

http://www.footballeconomy.com/content/ ... ldings-plc

Not all figures available, but under JM reign i reckon he invested over £30m to cover trading losses getting us to the Premiership

Good stuff! And I presume we lost a whack in 2008-09 trying to bounce back?

[Tony Le Mesmer]

97/98. 97% Wages over Turnover.

[Northern Git]

Gotta love how spending a few million on required players would automatically render us bankrupt and relegated. Its as if there is no medium. If we are not financially secure enough, especially after receiving 7 million on sig in august on top of 20 million in the last few seasons to spend 2-3 million in january, we quite frankly are an awfully run club and the fans have every right to ask where the money went.

It's about expectation & practicality. Do it once and you have to keep doing it.

We finish in the top six and fail to go up, we have to spend big to maintain that next season, because it's so easy for other clubs to spend big and over take us, and once you've spent big once even the more conservative fans won't accept not continuing to do it.

And if we do go up, we have to spend even bigger to have a decent chance of staying there. And the same the next season, ad infinitum.

That's how you get in the mess those clubs are. It's hard enough to be stable without doing it as we've shown.

Or, we can keep running a tight ship trying to slowly accumulate a side good enough that with a much smaller push will still make it, with about as minimal risk of financial trouble as is possible in football. There's a larger chance of relegation short term, but probably a better chance of avoiding one or even two relegations long term. Especially with Madejski unwilling or unable, depending on who you believe, to seriously bankroll us.

100% unwilling I am afraid, but its his choice. Now if you are a basket case printer(s), selling a cost or below then JM.s benevolance knows no bounds.
£100,000,000 million and counting so far.

'Goodhead owner Sir John Madejski, who reiterated his long-term commitment to the business in an interview with PrintWeek during the summer, loaned the group an additional £10.8m during the period, and has extended further financial support since.
http://www.printweek.com/News/1042995/BGP-full-year-results-new-contracts-kick/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH