Maguire, a Football Finance lecturer at Liverpool University and co-host of the Price of Football podcast, has kept a keen eye on all things Dai Yongge as the Chinese businessman became progressively more of a ‘wrong’un’ as his seven-year reign went on.
In the past 18 months, the club have missed payments to staff, HMRC and creditors, with the club currently only having enough cash to stay afloat until next month.
The latest wrongdoing is a refusal to publish financial accounts for the 2022/23 season, which were due in June.
The EFL have imposed a transfer embargo, but the club show no sign of publishing and abiding by the law.
“Fair play to the EFL, we are now three months beyond the final date,” he said on his podcast. “It is a criminal offence to not submit accounts, but it is a criminal offence for which the tariff is a very modest financial penalty. In theory, Companies House could take you through a winding-up order or try to disqualify the directors, but they’ve got so much on their hands- it’s a bit like if a policeman spots you doing 32mph in an urban road- they’ve got better things to do with their time.
“The EFL has clearly reached the end of its tether and imposed a transfer ban on Reading for non-submission of accounts. I very much applaud that, if it were left to me I would have brought it in earlier or put pressure on the club but Reading needed all the help it could get during the summer.”
Last week, the club confirmed that they had entered a period of exclusivity with an unnamed party, just weeks on from the collapse of Rob Couhig’s takeover attempt.
Less than convinced with the standard of potential buyers, it is safe to say Maguire has little faith in those selling the club.
“I normally say one cheer or two cheers, but I’ve got no cheers as far as this potential deal is concerned,” he concluded. “In my opinion, the people at the top of Reading are incompetent, rubbish, self-serving and not acting in the best interests of the football club.”