Reading have attracted major new investors, but with only just over a half full stadium, what makes the difference? Hull City+KC Reading+the manki Says it all really, if you want or need money to fund the PL you will need to own your stadium.
Yes, but the owners of Manchester City can afford to buy the City of Manchester, and with it the Council.
The fact is the Arabs haven't bought the stadium nor has the Council to my knowledge offered to sell it - hasn't stopped them spending 200 mill on players and spending shed loads more on redeveloping the vast area of wasteland outside the stadium for their Academy etc. Also interesting to note that the comments from the Amber Nectar and CI reports of Saturdays game venting their abhorrence to out of town soulless stadia such as the Madejski. Perhaps the Allams could take note on both counts.
1) The Arabs have a lot more money than the Allams. 2) UEFA have introduced the Financial Fair Play rules to prevent clubs receiving money the way Man City have. 3) Amber Nectar and CI can have as many people as they want complaining of soulless out of town grounds as they want, there's just as many in town grounds that meet the soulless description.
Readings major new investor is a Billionaire who was educated in the town and wanted to give something back. We have an investor who pumped circa £45mil into the club because he wanted to give something back to the city, I am struggling to see what the relevance of the stadium ownership is to either of these deals. There are probably a few much better examples that could have been mentioned to back up your argument, but clearly Reading and Man City are not the ones.
The major sh are holding in Reading has been sold to the Son of. Billionaire. The reason the Majaski sold is that he believes that Reading as. Club does not have enough funding to survive the promotion battle as well as the PL. It does not have enough season ticket sales and it's only asset worth having is it's stadium. The point is that without the Stadium, there will only be investment at the current levels where as Reading have identified a higher investment need.
The Allams have put a quarter of their speculated worth into Hull City. I'd bet that's more than the Arabs have put into Man City relatively. Questioning the Allams decision making or stance on the stadium is fine. Don't suggest they should have invested more, it's ludicrous.
I have never sought to questions the Allam's intentions, far from it or indeed suggested they should put more money into the Club. I am eternally grateful that they are been so philanthropic towards my football club. Merely pointing out that the Etihad is Council owned and that out ot town stadia are cack IMHO.
I am very very supportive of the Allams and the plans for the future. If Reading need extra funding to make it, how will we.
If a 29 year old has £40m to spend on a football club, then I'm not sure he'll need to re-mortgage the stadium to fund either wages or player purchases.
We seem to be doing all right now without splashing the cash so to speak. John Madejski has gone on record to say the new investors will be prudent in their spending and wil follow the model that Reading have set for a few years now. We haven't done too bad spending 300 -800k on the likes of Evans Chester Stewart Hobbs so why do we need to go gung ho and spend millions on the likes of Maynard or Sharp that are lauded as the 'best' this division has to offer?
