Reading FC Womens World

[Hound]

Shutting it down altogether would be a dreadful decision

However going part time makes some sense and actually if the reasons behind it - to ensure the entire club is sustainable going forward - then I think it’s the correct decision

The women’s game is just starting to mirror the men’s which is a shame. Chelsea/Arsenal/Man U/City/Liverpool winning everything with Spurs attempting to be up with the big clubs but failing miserably

Suppose it was inevitable but days of Reading challenging the top 3 in the WSL are long gone

[Clyde1998]

As harsh as it sounds we should have binned them off altogether given our current plight.

Agreed. I think I last read they cost the club £100,000 per year and that's growing. As harsh as it may feel, they're an unnessasary expense atm.

The last accounts showed a £1.2m loss with £577k of revenue.

The problem is we cannot compete now the big Premier League clubs are chucking money at the womens’ game. There will not be the broadcasting revenue, nor ticket revenue from playing sides like Chelsea or Arsenal, in the lower leagues so going part-time is the only way to keep the womens’ team even vaguely financially viable (especially with the mens’ team being in League One).

[Anfield Royal]

Look on the plus side - The ladies will be home more and can get the washing done and dinner ready for their full-time working partners to come home to

[katweslowski]

As harsh as it sounds we should have binned them off altogether given our current plight.

From what I have had to endure the last few seasons, I would say a better option would be to "bin off" the men's team and invest heavily into the women.

[Elm Park Kid]

It's been stated again and again and again - the club doesn't have a financial problem, it has a regulatory problem. The owners have plenty of money, we're just not allowed to spend it. One of the exceptions of that is the Women's team, where the rules let us spend whatever we want. I think it's a real shame that the owners have decided to cut back the relatively small amounts it's spending on them - it's a regressive stance in an era of growing interest in the women's team. And it has zero . . . zero impact on the men's team.

Did the other two clubs that Dai owned until they went bust also not have a financial problem?

If we don't have a financial problem (an owner problem), why is the maintenance budget still cut as low as it can be? PPE work that needs to be done is still being ignored which ultimately costs us more to resolve later. I'm sure there are other areas of the business suffering investment as well.

I have no idea what went on at the previous clubs - maybe the owners just decided that they had had enough and let them collapse, rather than do what was needed to keep them going.

What i'm saying is that given our owners do have the ability to bankroll all of this, i'm not sure why any fan would cheer them deciding not too. It doesn't (theoretically) impact what can be spent on the men's team.

If your argument is that the owners have a threshold of how much they are mentally prepared to spend overall and that the women's team might take a chunk of that, then fair enough. But if it's true that this is the period where women's football dynasties will be created by those willing to spend the most - then I would be encouraging the owners to gamble and push the boat out. You never know, maybe the men's team will one day benefit from a much more popular Women's team . . . . .

[YorkshireRoyal99]

It seems like a sensible decision has been made, albeit an unfortunate one really. Having said that, the women's team are far from the only side in that division that are part-time either.

Just shy of £1m to keep the women's side going for the 2022/23 season has been reported, that's a fair sum of money to be giving away for a League One club, especially given the FA funding and broadcasting revenue will also decrease significantly. If it helps the club become more sustainable overall, then taking a (large) step backwards will hopefully help the club move forwards.

[Royals and Racers]

Club statement https://www.readingfc.co.uk/news/2023/j ... ime-model/
More information in this BBC article.

Emma Sanders, BBC Sport

It is a situation which sadly will come as no surprise with Reading having struggled to compete financially with WSL clubs during its eight-year stay in the top-flight.

Several players remain on full-time contracts and it is understood they will have individual meetings with the club throughout Tuesday to discuss the financial implications.

It is believed the club will honour those full-time contracts with the appropriate wages, but those players may wish to leave in search of full-time training and therefore mutual terminations of contracts is not out of the question.

Players who had one-year extension options in their contracts were all informed last week that those would not be exercised and they were essentially made free agents.

A number of those players have already been in discussions with other clubs over potential moves with the summer transfer window officially opening on Friday, 9 June.

Some staff members will also be discussing their futures with several expected to be placed under redundancy.

[Clyde1998]

Just had a look at Companies House to estimate what the revenue for a Women's Championship side is (it's difficult to find a club that provides these figures, as all clubs appear to only file small company accounts).

That said, Sunderland's did contain revenue figures of £203k for the 2021-22 season. Assuming Sunderland's revenue is comparable to what we would get in the Championship, that would mean our revenues would reduce to a third of the level we had in the Super League.

£200,000 divided by twenty-five employees (Reading Women had 37 employees in the last accounts) would mean £8,000 p/a in wages to have a 100% wages to turnover ratio. That £8k p/a would be under £4 per hour for a 40 hour week (significantly below minimum wage). There's literally no (legal) way to sustainably run a football club full-time with that level of revenue.

[andrew1957]

It seems sad but the few big teams will most likely prevent the women game ever growing in England - as few if any other teams can compete. Surely the way forward would be to apply PL levy which could be distributed to the smaller Super League and women's Championship clubs to enable them to complete - otherwise the women's game will be stifled and the Super League will just become a boring closed shop consisting of just 8-10 or so PL teams. This seems such a great shame after the Euro success.

[Hound]

Yeah some kind of rethink is needed. Bit won’t happen. It’ll just end up the big boys and girls protecting their own interests at the top

[AthleticoSpizz]

rinse and repeat.

[Kitsondinho]

Gutted. If Dai had spent just 1/8 of the money he has thrown away on the men’s team, we’d have a very decent WSL side. Instead, we’ve got two relegated sides and made a hugely regressive move (however much financial sense it makes…)

[Pepe the Horseman]

STAR have come out and applauded the decision. Disgusting.

[tidus_mi2]

STAR have come out and applauded the decision. Disgusting.

Applauded is a real exaggeration, we wanted the club to run within it's means, this is part of it, funding a full time women's team means it has to run at a significant loss, obviously pales in comparison to the men's team but the club has been able to make cutbacks to the women's team just as it has had to make cutbacks to the men's team.

[Pepe the Horseman]

STAR have come out and applauded the decision. Disgusting.

Applauded is a real exaggeration, we wanted the club to run within it's means, this is part of it, funding a full time women's team means it has to run at a significant loss, obviously pales in comparison to the men's team but the club has been able to make cutbacks to the women's team just as it has had to make cutbacks to the men's team.

Yeh I was joking. Twitter is obviously OUTRAGED though.

[tidus_mi2]

STAR have come out and applauded the decision. Disgusting.

Applauded is a real exaggeration, we wanted the club to run within it's means, this is part of it, funding a full time women's team means it has to run at a significant loss, obviously pales in comparison to the men's team but the club has been able to make cutbacks to the women's team just as it has had to make cutbacks to the men's team.

Yeh I was joking. Twitter is obviously OUTRAGED though.

Honestly can never tell, and as you say, with the Twitter outrage, I did think I was with the minority on this one.

[Elm Park Kid]

STAR have come out and applauded the decision. Disgusting.

Applauded is a real exaggeration, we wanted the club to run within it's means, this is part of it, funding a full time women's team means it has to run at a significant loss, obviously pales in comparison to the men's team but the club has been able to make cutbacks to the women's team just as it has had to make cutbacks to the men's team.

Let's be honest here - STAR doesn't actually want the club to 'run within its means', no fan does given the current situation of football finance. Our total revenue in the Championship was £16m, which only covered our non-wage budget, every single penny of what we paid the players came from our owners. So, even if we did things like get rid of the Women's team, our academy and downsize spending in every possible area, our wage budget when 'running within our means' is highly unlikely to ever reach more than £10m - IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP. In League One you'd be talking about a wage budget of probably £3-4m a year, which would put us firmly in mid-table for the league.

Running within our means means returning to what we were before Madejski. Now - if you want to talk about 'running within FFP rules', that's a different matter entirely - that's achievable. But then funding the Women's team makes absolutely not impact on our ability to meet FFP rules.

[tidus_mi2]

STAR have come out and applauded the decision. Disgusting.

Applauded is a real exaggeration, we wanted the club to run within it's means, this is part of it, funding a full time women's team means it has to run at a significant loss, obviously pales in comparison to the men's team but the club has been able to make cutbacks to the women's team just as it has had to make cutbacks to the men's team.

Let's be honest here - STAR doesn't actually want the club to 'run within its means', no fan does given the current situation of football finance. Our total revenue in the Championship was £16m, which only covered our non-wage budget, every single penny of what we paid the players came from our owners. So, even if we did things like get rid of the Women's team, our academy and downsize spending in every possible area, our wage budget when 'running within our means' is highly unlikely to ever reach more than £10m - IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP. In League One you'd be talking about a wage budget of probably £3-4m a year, which would put us firmly in mid-table for the league.

Running within our means means returning to what we were before Madejski. Now - if you want to talk about 'running within FFP rules', that's a different matter entirely - that's achievable. But then funding the Women's team makes absolutely not impact on our ability to meet FFP rules.

I'm not really sure which direction the club is going, I would rather an owner who is happy to fund the club with it budgeted to go to the absolute limits of FFP if necessary, so £39m over a 3 season period, one that will happily throw money at the women's team and invest in facilities and to be fair, Dai has done the latter, was funding the women's team and we all know about how he treated FFP.

So taking those 3 points:

1) Invest in the club but stay within FFP, we won't know until later as we've only just exited the transfer embargo but all words coming out of the club are suggesting we won't be repeating the mistakes of the past, so we'll see about that.

2) Funding the women's team, clearly not going to continue, this is the part I don't fully understand the position of, yes with all the cutbacks it makes sense but with women's team funding not being a factor to the men's FFP there is nothing stopping Dai funding the women's team if he wants to, so I can only assume he or the club have come to the conclusion the investment needed isn't worth it, especially in League One.

3) Invest in facilities, obviously a lot has been pumped into Bearwood Park and as per Bowen's words, we have pushed to return to a Cat 1 academy ASAP and have already been audited, if we do regain Cat 1 status, I think Dai should be commended for this as supporting a Cat 1 academy in the Championship is already quite an investment, let alone League One.

So I suppose in summary, I don't truly understand the decision on the women's team, what difference will being in the Championship make that being in League One means we have to scale back? Does the men's team make contributions to the women's team with Dai filling the rest? That's the only situation I could see the need to scale back but then being able to re-invest if we were to get promoted.

[Dirk Gently]

STAR have come out and applauded the decision. Disgusting.

Applauded is a real exaggeration, we wanted the club to run within it's means, this is part of it, funding a full time women's team means it has to run at a significant loss, obviously pales in comparison to the men's team but the club has been able to make cutbacks to the women's team just as it has had to make cutbacks to the men's team.

Let's be honest here - STAR doesn't actually want the club to 'run within its means', no fan does given the current situation of football finance. Our total revenue in the Championship was £16m, which only covered our non-wage budget, every single penny of what we paid the players came from our owners. So, even if we did things like get rid of the Women's team, our academy and downsize spending in every possible area, our wage budget when 'running within our means' is highly unlikely to ever reach more than £10m - IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP. In League One you'd be talking about a wage budget of probably £3-4m a year, which would put us firmly in mid-table for the league.

Running within our means means returning to what we were before Madejski. Now - if you want to talk about 'running within FFP rules', that's a different matter entirely - that's achievable. But then funding the Women's team makes absolutely not impact on our ability to meet FFP rules.

STAR is a Supporters' Trust and one of their founding principles is every club running within its means, with supporter ownership or participation - so if they don't think that they're in breach of their articles of association.

But the key point is "every club" - the real problem is the uneven playing field when success depends wholly upon how rich your owner is and how much they can channel into the team without breaking regulations.

[Royal_jimmy]

I expect the women's team to be scaled back/scrapped now we've been relegated

I really hope you are wrong. It would be a very bad move and look for a club that claims to be fully inclusive and family oriented.

I was right about this. Very disappointing but not overly surprising they're going part time