Madejski being booed yesterday

[Uke]

fcuk off newbie!

I sometimes wonder if they actually have bank account balances or just overdrafts, loans and credit cards

Quite - there are 1.001 reasons to hate JM, being cautious with RFC's finances with a view to making us self-sufficient in the long term (after he's gone) is not one of them.
Thanks for the welcome

No problem Just don't get big headed and think its reserved for you.

[Dirk Gently]

Point 1, you are saying unequivocally that the chairman has never been repaid any monies at all for the loans that he has provided to the club???

Yes, that's what I've been told - unequivocally - by someone who certainly knows.

Point 2 - You are either Steve Coppell ,Nick Hammond or Nigel Howe

Not necessarily. Other people know the club's financial workings too. But I have spoken to all 3 of the above in the past couple of months.

Point 3 - absolute tosh - as previous posters have said - list them then!

Already done this - see previous post.

Point 4 - I can only think of Hull City and Adam Pearson (at the time) recognising the Reading model

I know of quite a few more - Wolves in particular are going to do extremely well this year because they have gone for a "team without stars" who are mostly young and hungry. Brighton also want to follow the Reading model, amongst many others. But the fact that everyone in football understands the term "the Reading model" says a lot about it's pervasiveness.

Very interesting.
If true, this should shut a few people right up.
I'm not holding my breath.

I must confess I did make a fundamental error in what I posted, for which I hang my head in shame. There shouldn't be an apostrophe in the penultimate word

Apart from that i stand by it all completely - although, as you say, not all will take it on board. After all, there's none so blind as those who won't see.

[Hoop Blah]

Point 1, you are saying unequivocally that the chairman has never been repaid any monies at all for the loans that he has provided to the club???

Yes, that's what I've been told - unequivocally - by someone who certainly knows.

Point 2 - You are either Steve Coppell ,Nick Hammond or Nigel Howe

Not necessarily. Other people know the club's financial workings too. But I have spoken to all 3 of the above in the past couple of months.

Point 3 - absolute tosh - as previous posters have said - list them then!

Already done this - see previous post.

Point 4 - I can only think of Hull City and Adam Pearson (at the time) recognising the Reading model

I know of quite a few more - Wolves in particular are going to do extremely well this year because they have gone for a "team without stars" who are mostly young and hungry. Brighton also want to follow the Reading model, amongst many others. But the fact that everyone in football understands the term "the Reading model" says a lot about it's pervasiveness.

Very interesting.
If true, this should shut a few people right up.
I'm not holding my breath.

The criticisms of Madejski's financial backing of the club is a bit misplaced. The problem is, if we really want to argue over it, is that there is very little evidence of what is true and factual and what is just whats been said in a public (or private) conversation.

I'm pretty sure that the clubs accounts actually show that some money has been paid back to Madejski from his loans, but I do believe that in general the point that he's not been taking his money out is pretty valid. It'll be interesting to see the accounts for this and the last financial year as and when they become available though.

As for the Reading model being the talk of football, I'm not surprised by that one bit. A few years ago when Charlton and Bolton were the successful flavour of the month they're way of doing it was everyone's standard. If Stoke or Hull have a successful season or two and their books made sensible reading (I've no idea where Stoke are getting their money from at the moment) then I'm sure they'll replace our model as the blueprint for success as we replaced Charltons.

[readingbedding]

I think I'll take Dirk's view over others, when it comes down to the running of the Club.
I believe him when he says that he speaks to people directly involved with the Club, why would he lie, and if he is well there's not much I can do about it.

Anyway, I prefer opinions based on that rather than theory and general and random dislike.

[Hoop Blah]

I think I'll take Dirk's view over yours.
I believe him when he says that he speaks to people directly involved with the Club, why would he lie, and if he is well there's not much I can do about it.

Anyway, I prefer opinions based on that rather than theory and general and random dislike.

I don't doubt any of Dirks posts, I have no reason to and have never said anything to suggest I don't believe them.

I do have a cynical and questioning mind though and I question the motives of any source of information. By that I mean I question the information passed to Dirk and potentially the interpretation of that information by Dirk. I know he and his STAR friends have been misinformed in the past through threads on here, possibly intentionally, possibly through mistake, by those that they deal with at the club.

Through my experience, even those in very responsible positions who should know more about the things they talk about often get things wrong or make sweeping statements that get taken for fact when it is just an opinion or a rough estimate. Those comments then get repeated as fact and taken a little out of context.

Dirk is in a very privilege position as far as fans go. He is privy to information the majority of fans will never know, or need to know really, but that doesn't mean he and his sources are infallible or beyond questioning, in fact, being so close to such information or the persuasive sources of it can often shape an opinion.

That's not meant as any sort of criticism of Dirk, who, pedantry aside, is one of the more balanced and interesting posters on the board with a pretty unique insight into the club.

[brendywendy]

there is certainly no evidence of financial irregularities/madejski robbing us blind in the last two sets of books
and when last seasons come out im sure there will be none there either
but it wont stop this neverending row.

[Royal Rother]

I'm pretty sure that the clubs accounts actually show that some money has been paid back to Madejski from his loans, but I do believe that in general the point that he's not been taking his money out is pretty valid. It'll be interesting to see the accounts for this and the last financial year as and when they become available though.

I believe the well informed westendgirl told us recently that the latest accounts showed a loan of £8m owed to JM and that, at some stage, the balance of the loan had been converted to shares. (That is to say he will not see any of that until he sells the company, and indeed, depending on the amount paid for the shares might not see anything at all!)

I have now repeated it 3 times in the last couple of weeks on the various "JM / where has the money gone" threads, but the blindness DG refers to seems to kick in as soon as something that doesn't fit the "popular" misconceptions is posted so it's been conveniently ignored each time!

[brendywendy]

at last, some actual facts, rather than misconcieved speculation

will sense break out as a result

nah

[Dirk Gently]

I think I'll take Dirk's view over yours.
I believe him when he says that he speaks to people directly involved with the Club, why would he lie, and if he is well there's not much I can do about it.

Anyway, I prefer opinions based on that rather than theory and general and random dislike.

I don't doubt any of Dirks posts, I have no reason to and have never said anything to suggest I don't believe them.

I do have a cynical and questioning mind though and I question the motives of any source of information. By that I mean I question the information passed to Dirk and potentially the interpretation of that information by Dirk. I know he and his STAR friends have been misinformed in the past through threads on here, possibly intentionally, possibly through mistake, by those that they deal with at the club.

Through my experience, even those in very responsible positions who should know more about the things they talk about often get things wrong or make sweeping statements that get taken for fact when it is just an opinion or a rough estimate. Those comments then get repeated as fact and taken a little out of context.

Dirk is in a very privilege position as far as fans go. He is privy to information the majority of fans will never know, or need to know really, but that doesn't mean he and his sources are infallible or beyond questioning, in fact, being so close to such information or the persuasive sources of it can often shape an opinion.

That's not meant as any sort of criticism of Dirk, who, pedantry aside, is one of the more balanced and interesting posters on the board with a pretty unique insight into the club.

Thanks for the compliment.

I take on board what you say - it is quite possible that what I'm being told may well be wrong or that I may be being manipulated in order to spread a "favourable" message. But I don't just pass things on without question, and I apply my own filtering system to what I pass on, so that I do think about the source, the context and the number of times I've heard things before I accept them as fact.

But you're right, I am in an extremely privileged position and I have to be extremely careful not to break confidences - in fact, the biggest (and most infuriating) dilemma I frequently have is knowing stuff that I just can't pass on at the time (for instance the DK/LL problems at the end of last season which I had to keep quiet about until he'd left.)

For what it's worth, regularly meeting with the people who run the club on a day-to-day basis has taught me that they're honest, hard-working, people trying to do their best for the club within the constraints that they're working under - and the automatic assumption of some that everything that happens happens the way it does is because of some great conspiracy leaves me exasperated. That's not to say by a long way that everything that the club does is right, but it's virtually always done with the right motives or for reasons that aren't public knowledge.

I'll also add to this that JM is not actually very close to the day-to-day running of the club, and so he doesn't have a particularly great understanding of the day-to-day details of this - but he does have a habit of opening his mouth in an unguarded way which helps no-one.

[Hoop Blah]

there is certainly no evidence of financial irregularities/madejski robbing us blind in the last two sets of books
and when last seasons come out im sure there will be none there either
but it wont stop this neverending row.

Just to make my stance clear, I'm not suggesting he's either robbing us blind or that there is any hint of financial irregularities going on.

As RR says, apparenlty Madejski has supposedly converted a loan into shares. Now technically that means he's not taken anything out of the club, and obviously if the shares become worthless he's lost that money, and at the same time Dirks source that says Madejski hasn't taken any money out of the club which is still factually correct. However, JM now owns those shares and the value of them as opposed to just being another creditor of the clubs.

It's a grey line, and nothing is at all irregular about it (as far as I'm aware!), but in some ways, real terms if you like, that loan has been repayed to JM despite him not taking any money out of the club.

[Dirk Gently]

there is certainly no evidence of financial irregularities/madejski robbing us blind in the last two sets of books
and when last seasons come out im sure there will be none there either
but it wont stop this neverending row.

Just to make my stance clear, I'm not suggesting he's either robbing us blind or that there is any hint of financial irregularities going on.

As RR says, apparenlty Madejski has supposedly converted a loan into shares. Now technically that means he's not taken anything out of the club, and obviously if the shares become worthless he's lost that money, and at the same time Dirks source that says Madejski hasn't taken any money out of the club which is still factually correct. However, JM now owns those shares and the value of them as opposed to just being another creditor of the clubs.

It's a grey line, and nothing is at all irregular about it (as far as I'm aware!), but in some ways, real terms if you like, that loan has been repayed to JM despite him not taking any money out of the club.

Fair enough, but that's essentially an accountancy exercise that's not particularly relevant to the crucial argument, which is the accusation/infreence that actual money (i.e. cold hard cash that could be used for transfers) is being taken out of the club, to the detriment of the club.

[brendywendy]

id prefer he coverted loans to shares though
surely everyone would
loans involve him taking cash out of the club on a regular basis
the other involves him turning it into shares in a football club he already owns, only to be converted to cash upon selling up.
which depends totally on our continued success
if we were to be relegated this season those shares would be worth little

im unsure as to why anyone would frown on this

but then i have no idea why people frown on him wanting to recoup his losses at all on here
very strange attitude to have.

[Royal Rother]

It's a grey line, and nothing is at all irregular about it (as far as I'm aware!), but in some ways, real terms if you like, that loan has been repayed to JM despite him not taking any money out of the club.

Now that is a very strange interpretation.

Let's say I start a Ltd Co, with 100 shares of £1 each for which I pay £100. I then inject £20,000 as initial capital to buy machinery, pay for initial advertising etc. The intention is that I withdraw my £20,000 out of future profits.

Then, for one of any number of reasons, to increase commitment to please funders, to add substance to the Balance Sheet or whatever, I decide to convert the loan into shares, giving me £20,100 of shares. I am now no longer owed £20,000 by the company so it is money that I now can't get my hands on until I sell them. And of course they might not be worth anything to anyone, ever.

Beats me how, in real terms, converting a personal loan into shares could be construed as repaying my loan.

[brendywendy]

It's a grey line, and nothing is at all irregular about it (as far as I'm aware!), but in some ways, real terms if you like, that loan has been repayed to JM despite him not taking any money out of the club.

LOL


the hobnob school of business continues to take on new recruits i see

[Uke]

id prefer he coverted loans to shares though
surely everyone would
loans involve him taking cash out of the club on a regular basis
the other involves him turning it into shares in a football club he already owns, only to be converted to cash upon selling up.
which depends totally on our continued success
if we were to be relegated this season those shares would be worth little

im unsure as to why anyone would frown on this

but then i have no idea why people frown on him wanting to recoup his losses at all on here
very strange attitude to have.

They also somehow have convinced themselves that the Abramoviches, Glazers, the Gilletts and the Dubai Royal family are all investing solely to give money away with no return on investment too!

[Royal Rother]

Just to add to my previous post - Of course, it might also be that if I had had a co-shareholder and we had 50% each but he/she didn't inject £20,000 at the start, we might decide that the £20,000 loan conversion to shares is the right thing to do to give me a higher percentage ownership of the company - which of course would be completely reasonable seeing as I had risked my money at the outset.

To be fair, in the case of JM, there could also be many other very technical reasons relating to management of his vast personal wealth that would go right over my head....

[Sarah Star]

id prefer he coverted loans to shares though
surely everyone would
loans involve him taking cash out of the club on a regular basis
the other involves him turning it into shares in a football club he already owns, only to be converted to cash upon selling up.
which depends totally on our continued success
if we were to be relegated this season those shares would be worth little

im unsure as to why anyone would frown on this

but then i have no idea why people frown on him wanting to recoup his losses at all on here
very strange attitude to have.

They also somehow have convinced themselves that the Abramoviches, Glazers, the Gilletts and the Dubai Royal family are all investing solely to give money away with no return on investment too!

How does that work then? How do they get a return on their investments when the club is debt to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds? I just assumed football clubs were a rich man's play thing and they just recouped their money when they sold up, not before.

I don't doubt you, btw. I just don't know how these things work.

[ElmParker]

To be fair, in the case of JM,...

No true Reading fan would ever do this.

[brendywendy]

abramovich wont want to recoup every penny-but then he is in a totally different class of rich

the others listed will all take money back when they sell the club for more than they bought it for
IMO

[Royal Rother]

Except the recession might just oxf*rd up those plans for a good few years.

Shame.