WestYorksRoyalChairman Mao^SCIAG Fascinating to imagine where we would be if not for the money of Zingarevich, the Thais and the Dais. Madejski sells to someone who wants to own the club but insists upon it remaining self-sufficient.
Best case scenario is probably Brentford. We could have sold Kebe and that summer and brought through HRK and Antonio as replacements, along with Federici or McCarthy if there was interest. Get by with frees and loans and academy players, and the occasional big-ticket purchase funded by a sale (along the lines of Leigertwood and Gorkss).
At some point we'd probably run out of sellable assets, but we'd still have had Morrison, Le Fondre, Hector, Cooper, Tshibola... and I think there's a good chance some other Academy lads would have had greater sale value than in real life. We might well have got relegated because we only narrowly avoided it a few times. But seems like it would have been better for the club.
I remember after relegation in 08 Madejski implied that there was a reputable buyer who pulled out because of relegation. We definitely could have attracted better than AZ in the Premier League. That woeful performance at home to Fulham remains one of our most damaging losses.
Could have been the family who own Leicester. I know there was rumour that Madejski didn't sell to them because he didn't think they knew anything about football.
I've always dismissed the possibility of that being a genuine story given the fact that Sir John has always cheerfully admitted that he himself knows nothing about football. Although maybe that's just his self deprecating sense of humour.
