Latest chapter in the Reading saga

Reading’s holding company, Renhe Sports Management Co Ltd, was served this week with a winding-up petition by Walker Morris, the law firm the club used for several years until its top sports lawyer, David Hinchliffe, left last month to join a new firm, Wiggins, taking the Reading account with him.

With Hinchliffe no longer on the payroll, Walker Morris took the not-unreasonable decision that it might be time to call in Reading’s sizeable debt to the firm. Reading — who have now been hit by four winding-up petitions since 2020 — declined to comment.

For those new to the boxset that is Reading’s takeover, Chinese businessman Dai Yongge bought the club in May 2017, shortly after that play-off final defeat. His reign in Royal Berkshire has been disastrous — for him and the club — with Reading’s fans in open revolt for over a year.

Dai has been trying to sell the club ever since they were relegated to League One in 2023 but received no concrete offer from a credible buyer until this summer, when New Orleans-based lawyer Rob Couhig appeared on the scene with a £30million bid for the club, stadium and training ground.

Couhig is not just the latest wealthy American to fancy a spin on the promotion/relegation roulette wheel, he has already done it, having owned Reading’s neighbour, Wycombe Wanderers, for five years until May, when he sold the League One side to Kazakh billionaire Mikhail Lomtadze.

So, the 75-year-old litigator is coming into this with his eyes wide open. In fact, he even tried to buy Reading’s training ground earlier this year — when Dai seemed to be pursuing a yard-sale approach to getting his money back — only to quickly withdraw the offer after criticism from fans.

But, with his Wycombe sale proceeds burning a hole in his pocket and a gap in his weekend where the buzz of owning a football club used to be, Couhig and fellow Louisianian Todd Trosclair agreed a deal with Dai in August and fully expected to close it last month only for… well, they are still not sure.

Contrary to some reports, Couhig did not pull out of the deal. He had every right to, as the club inexplicably failed to disclose the fact that one of Dai’s British Virgin Island-registered companies had borrowed £55million from a Chinese state bank secured on the stadium until Couhig’s advisors stumbled on it during the late stages of due diligence, but he did not. Dai did.

This meant, Reading had to repay the almost £5million Couhig had lent them at the start of the season, which the club did very promptly, thanks to a sell-on clause in former star Michael Olise’s transfer to Crystal Palace that turned into a timely windfall when the France winger moved to Bayern Munich this summer.

Couhig, however, did not the cancel the liens, a form of security, he has on the training ground and stadium.

Why? Well, he declined to comment when The Athletic asked him but their educated guess is that he is a bit miffed nobody has taken the trouble to explain why his takeover, which was only Dai’s signature short of completion, collapsed, and he would still like to buy the club for what would appear to be a fair price of £30million, with just over half of that upfront.

The Athletic’s hunch, for what it is worth, is Dai will eventually realise he is not going to get a better offer than Couhig’s and Reading can return to being a club focused on wins and losses, not docked points, embargoes and winding-up petitions.

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The Political Economy of Football V2

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