Football finance expert Kieran Maguire has given his thoughts on Reading FC’s drawn out takeover process after it was confirmed last week that exclusivity with an unnamed party had expired.
The club released a statement last week to confirm that talks are still ongoing with more than one party and that current owner Dai Yongge is ‘committed to selling the club at the earliest opportunity.’
Speaking to BBC Berkshire, Maguire said: “It’s not that unusual. If we take a look at what is just happening with Everton, they had an eight month period with an organisation called 777 partners and that lapsed on May 31.
“When Derby County were in administration they were trying to sell the club to a guy called Chris Kirchner and that deal failed.
“Unfortunately the industry attracts fantasists and tyre kickers at times that aren’t necessarily good for football as a whole and quite often you find out that they don’t have the money they claim to have or there could be issues on the sale side in terms of price or conditions.
“Telling people what they want to hear and not what they need to hear is one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to selling, politics or anything if you’re trying to persuade someone to get onside with you.
“For all we know the owner could have been asking for a crazy price, the bidder thought they could get them down, but if there’s no budging then it’s not good for all parties.”
