How much Dai Yongge bought Reading FC for as Rob Couhig looks to seal Royals takeover | OneFootball

Dai Yongge’s ownership of Reading has been an incredibly tough period for the club

Reading FC owner Dai Yongge has been disqualified from owning the club and given a deadline of 4 April to sell the club.

Former Wycombe Wanderers owner Rob Couhig – who claimed Yongge was blocking his attempts to buy the club – is one of the interested parties.

If a deal cannot be agreed before the deadline, then Reading’s entire status as a club is at risk.

Here, Football League World take a look at how much it cost Yongge to purchase the club in the first place.

How much Dai Yongge spent buying Reading

Yongge bought Reading in 2017, via Prestige Fortune Asia, along with his sister Dai Xiuli, while the club was still in the Championship.

That deal is reported to have cost the Chinese duo £24.5m.

Dai Xiuli was once named one of the richest women in the world, with Forbes estimating her fortune at $1.2billion, but Yongge has since become the sole main figure at the club.

Some reports suggest Yongge has invested £200m into the club since he bought it, but that hasn’t prevented the turmoil resulting from his ownership.

Dai Yongge’s poor record at Reading

The elusive owner has caused the Royals no end of problems, which could now culminate in the club’s entire future being put in jeopardy.

Since he took control of the club, Reading have been deducted a total of 18 points from their league tallies.

Those punishments come as a result of breaches of financial rules, paying wages late, issues with the club accounts and tax issues with HMRC.

They were relegated to League One in 2023, where they still are now, and their women’s team has also been forced to go part-time due to a lack of funding.

Despite early promise of Yongge investing in the squad, Reading are scarcely recognisable as a club due to his ownership.

Why Dai Yongge is being forced to sell up now

Yongge has fallen foul of the EFL’s Owners’ and Directors’ Test and was therefore disqualified as a director in March.

The disqualification was revealed in a recent court case and confirmed by the EFL, which means he can no longer satisfy the Owners’ and Directors’ Test.

It’s believed the disqualification is as a result of his business dealings in China, rather than specifically to do with his ownership of Reading.

The EFL board are set to meet on 4 April to discuss the next steps if a sale is not progressing, with one of the options being the suspension of Reading from the league.

In a statement last week, Reading said: “Whilst the EFL Board ultimately has the power within its regulations to suspend the club amongst its options if Mr Dai’s interests are not divested by this date, we remain in close dialogue with the league with the full intention of avoiding this eventuality.”

It’s a tense time for all associated with Reading. They, and the rest of the footballing community, will be watching on and hoping an equitable resolution can be found to save another club from dropping out of the Football League on account of troublesome ownership.