🧧 The English Football League Welcomes New Owners

It’s Monday May 12th.

At the time of writing this article I have 66,600 YouTube subscribers. On April 12th just four weeks ago I had 29,801.

In just 28 days my YouTube channel has ballooned in popularity and as a result the number of followers I have on every single platform has exploded in size. There are more than 500 new members of this newsletter than there were last week so welcome to every single one of you newcomers.

I’m excited to share plans with you for the rest of the year so stay tuned for more in the coming weeks.

Until then, alot going on in the football league.

After years of mismanagement, protests, and point deductions, Reading Football Club has officially agreed a deal to change ownership. Former Wycombe Wanderers owner Rob Couhig will take over the club through Redwood Holdings, ending the disastrous reign of Chinese businessman Dai Yongge.

The price of the takeover has not been announced but the deal includes Yongge’s stake in the club, the Select Car Leasing Stadium, and the Bearwood training ground.

For Reading fans, this moment has a long time coming

Yongge took over in 2017, days before Reading narrowly missed promotion to the Premier League. It’s been all downhill since.

• 18 points deducted in total for breaches of financial rules, unpaid wages, and missed tax payments

• Transfer embargoes that restricted them from signing players

• Women’s team collapse, dropping from the WSL to the fifth tier of women’s football

All of this can be traced to a reversal in the rules on how Chinese people can use their money from Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2018.

The change in capital controls in China meant Yongge (like many other wealthy Chinese elites) saw restrictions on how he can his money outside of China for several years, making it extremely difficult to capitalise the club.

These restrictions caused missed payments, unpaid taxes and a world of pain for Reading and their fans.

In complete contrast to Reading is the activity in Salford City.

Gary Neville and David Beckham have formed a consortium of individuals to take over the club from the previous majority owner Peter Lim. There are 3 interesting things about this Salford:

1. Alongisde Peter Lim, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and Phil Neville also relinquished their stakes in the team.

2. Salford enjoyed a meteoric rise through non-league football following the original takeover in 2014. They were promoted 4 times in 5 years before landing in League 2 where they have been for 6 seasons.

3. Despite adding experienced businessmen to the cap table, Neville, Beckham and co will have little involvement in the day-to-day operations. They intend to hire a CEO of the club to steer them to the next level.

I can’t help but think the Salford mission will be a bit of a long haul for Neville. The difference with Salford relative to the other transformational examples we are seeing in Wrexham and in Birmingham is the lack of fanbase in the area surrounding the club. I don’t ever see Salford becoming a big ticket seller, which will be critical for commercial revenues and growth of the football club.

I like Gary Neville, I enjoy watching him become the entrepreneur we are seeing. But this will certainly be his biggest challenge yet. I am fascinated to see it play out.

I will leave you with a treat from here…

For those of you who are new to the platform, I frequently get asked about my journey to this point.

Jesse Coleman invited me onto his podcast in December of 2024. It’s crazy that since I recorded this the platform has 3x’d. But this conversation takes you into the process a little more than usual!