Fresh Reading FC Takeover Backdrop Emerges

It has been revealed that Reading owner Dai Yongge was told he would not be allowed to own a club in the Premier League at the time of his takeover at the Select Car Leasing Stadium.

Yongge was previously blocked from buying Hull City during their time in the Premier League, and according to The Times, he was told before purchasing Reading that he would not be permitted to own them if they reached the top flight.

Despite his failed attempt to take over the Tigers, Yongge was given the green light to buy the Royals for £24.5 million in May 2017, but it has been a nightmare few years for the Berkshire outfit under his ownership.

Reading have suffered relegation to League One and had a total of 18 points deducted among a host of other issues during Yongge’s nightmare tenure, and after being disqualified by the EFL earlier this year, he has been given an extended deadline of 5th May to sell the club, otherwise they could face the threat of being suspended from the league.

The Royals are believed to be in advanced talks with former Wycombe Wanderers owner Rob Couhig over a potential takeover after his previous efforts to buy the club collapsed at the last minute in September, but it remains to be seen whether a deal will be completed by next week’s deadline.

In addition to the sale deadline, it is a huge week for Reading on the pitch, and Noel Hunt’s side could sneak into the play-off places if they better Leyton Orient’s result at Huddersfield when they host Barnsley on Saturday.

Premier League, Dai Yongge concerns revealed prior to Reading takeover

After the Premier League prevented a consortium led by Yongge from buying Hull, he formed a different group in order to purchase Reading, and they were given approval by the EFL in 2017.

However, The Times has now revealed that “the Premier League advised the EFL against the move on the basis that Yongge had not shown good faith in his application to buy Hull”, but those warnings were ignored as “the EFL’s legal advice was that it would not disqualify him from buying Reading under its rules at the time”, and they were reassured that he had “proof of source and sufficiency of funding”.

Despite the fact that Yongge had been accepted by the EFL, the Premier League is thought to have “made it clear” to him that if the Royals were to achieve promotion to the top flight, he would “need to divest himself of any controlling interest” in the club.

Since his takeover of Reading, two of Yongge’s other clubs – Chinese side Beijing Renhe and Belgian outfit KSV Roeselare – have been dissolved, and while those incidents would now disqualify him under the EFL’s rules, they would not have at the time.

With questions continuing to mount over how Yongge was given permission to buy the Royals, the EFL recently stressed that he had not been disqualified by the Premier League, and they claimed that the failure of his takeover of Hull was due to the involvement of another individual.

“Following recent comments in respect of the circumstances around the approval of Mr Dai’s acquisition of the Club in 2017, the League would like to reiterate that Mr Dai was not subject to a sports governing body disqualification, including the Premier League, at the time of the acquisition,” the EFL said in a statement earlier this month.

“The reason Mr Dai did not proceed with a purchase at Hull City was related to the involvement of a separate individual. This individual was not involved in the subsequent purchase of Reading, and in the absence of any disqualifying condition, alongside ample evidence of source and sufficiency of funding, the EFL was obligated to confirm that Mr Dai met the requirements of the Regulations.”

While the EFL have insisted that there were no grounds for them to prevent Yongge from buying Reading, the fact the Premier League deemed him to be an unfit owner raises serious question marks about why they did not share that view.

The Premier League clearly had strong enough concerns about Yongge to block his takeover of Hull and to warn the EFL about the potential problems ahead if he was allowed to buy the Royals, and those fears have certainly been realised in recent years.

As talks continue with Couhig over a potential takeover, there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel for the long-suffering Reading supporters, but even if a deal is completed before the deadline, the scrutiny of the EFL over why they allowed Yongge to purchase the club in the first place is likely to continue.