A right Royals mess: Reading paying heavy price for rolling the dice

Roll the dice. It is said to be one of the Reading owner Dai Yongge’s go-to phrases but it can feel foolish at the best of times, let alone amid the current backdrop. A thirst to hurriedly elevate the club to the Premier League, after a near-miss six years ago, has spectacularly backfired. Three weeks out from Reading’s first season in the third tier since 2001-02, they are playing catch-up. They have a threadbare squad with a handful of fit senior players, a disillusioned fanbase and a manager who only took charge on Friday, 18 days after being appointed, because of delays obtaining a work permit. They also face the threat of another points deduction after failing to pay wages on time.

Dai, 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. “It’s legalised gambling,” says Paula Martin, chair of the Supporters Trust at Reading of the financial approach. “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.”

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But it didn’t. Local MPs, including Theresa May, recently raised concerns with the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, Lucy Frazer. 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. 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. Thirteen players were released, including Grace Moloney, who had been at the club for 14 years.

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. So too is Paul Ince, who was sacked in April, still being listed as first-team manager on the club’s website. 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. The fear is that Reading have been left firmly behind by their promotion rivals.

In recent weeks Mr Dai has effectively drip-fed payments to lift some of the gloom. 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. 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. The hearing, scheduled for 9 August, should now pass without note.

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 loan clubs. Reading owed about £500,000 to clubs from whom they loaned players last season but settled that last week. 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 still face severe restrictions around paying fees owing to previous breaches.

Reading want to add 10-12 playersbut have missed out on targets because of the embargo. Agents have naturally looked elsewhere for their clients. Many of the players who have stayed had their wages halved upon relegation. The 34-year-old Theo Walcott, who has a strong relationship with Sellés from their time at Southampton, has been training with the club and could join. Andy Carroll has a contract until next summer.

Reading failed to pay players on time and in full on three occasions last season. Those payments are understood to have arrived a few days late and Reading cited mitigating circumstances, including administrative delays because of a public holiday. Staff have heard various stories but the recurring one relates to issues with cashflow and getting money out of China. Reading are optimistic they will receive a suspended points deduction but an independent commission will determine the sanction. A hat-trick of points deductions in three successive seasons remains a distinct possibility.

Reading lost all their senior players who were out of contract, with Tom Ince among those who walked away. He has joined Watford. Yakou Méïté has signed for Cardiff. The squad that flew to Spain was beefed out by academy players and trialists, one of whom, Harvey Knibbs, signed on Thursday. A reasonably positive week, by recent standards, papers over the cracks. “We can all get very positive and think, ‘Here we go’, but how long for?” says Martin. “At the moment it is short-term problems but they are indicative of long-term problems.”

Mr Dai speaks little English and communication between the owner and decision-makers is largely dependent on Dayong Pang, the chief executive and a de facto translator. Pang replaced the respected Nigel Howe, who served on the EFL board. Another key departure was Bryan Stabler, the finance director who retired last month after 22 years at the club. Kia Joorabchian, the agent who has disputed his influence at the club, is a confidant of the owner.

The relationship between the owners and the fanbase is severely fractured and a protest by the fans’ group Sell Before We Dai, an umbrella of five supporters’ groups, is scheduled for Reading’s friendly at Sutton United on Saturday. “There is a lot of panic at the moment,” says Nick Houlton of Sell Before We Dai. The protest group has written to Mr Dai and Pang in Mandarin to raise concerns. They are still none the wiser as to Mr Dai’s motivations for taking ownership of the club. The previous Thai owners still own the land surrounding the stadium.

There is plenty of work to do on the women’s side too. The job advert for a manager, after Kelly Chambers departed after 16 years, closed on Monday. Their only contracted goalkeeper, Jackie Burns, will miss the start of the season through injury. Emma Mukandi, one of those players to depart, said she hopes the club “begins to back women’s football and gives the players and staff the respect that they deserve”. Mr Dai has invested £6m across the past five years but the annual funding required for the second tier has dropped to a five-figure sum. “It is so disappointing that basically the women’s team are taking the hit for what’s happening to the club in general,” says Martin.

The women’s football review published on Thursday highlighted concern around the reliance on men’s teams’ infrastructure. There is a general understanding that it would be better, to coin a phrase used by Reading’s former owner Sir John Madejski, for the team to be able to wash its own face. Martin says the step to stop sharing gate receipts widened the divide between clubs with bigger followings. “It just made the big clubs get bigger and the smaller clubs start throwing money at it to try and get bigger,” she says.