There was a time when Reading Women were a symbol of decency and stability. They were a respectable team, who showcased that any club could make it to the top, if they were given the right support and assistance from their owners. Now, all of that has been torn apart, with the news that Reading Women will drop out of the Championship, plummeting to Tier 5 of the Football Pyramid. Their Academy has closed, and now even their continued existence is questionable. The club that had always fought against the tide, now looks close to being swept away altogether.
Reading’s initial story was emblematic of the path all clubs should aspire to. Founded in 2006, they made the long, slow climb up through the leagues until 2015, when they won promotion from WSL 2 and made their home amongst the footballing elite of WSL 1.
For eight years, Reading held their own against the rest, climbing to the giddy heights of fourth in 2017-18, before stabilising as a mid-table entity. Under the management of Kelly Cousins (née Chambers), they were the plucky underdogs, proof that you didn’t need to be bankrolled by Premier League money to compete with the top guns. If you didn’t turn up when you played Reading, they would make sure you departed with your tail between your legs. Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea have all suffered a bruised ego from The Royals. However, that is not to say the team was without quality of their own.
Their greatest star, Fran Kirby, was sadly taken from them by Chelsea before they made it to the top, but other household names, like Mary Earps, Dan Carter and Fara Williams, all passed through the club to help keep the WSL dream alive.
Whilst they may not have achieved success in the form of trophies, the fact they were able to stay as long as they did was an achievement in itself. But alas, as the women’s game grew, and the Premier League backed clubs gained in strength, it became a losing battle for Reading. With the purse strings tightening, and the gulf in quality starting to show, the inevitable happened. In 2023, the fairytale came to an end, as Reading slumped to 12th and were relegated back to the Championship. Their glorious WSL chapter had closed, and now a darker, tragic narrative has gripped this once inspirational team.
Reading Women’s situation is not in isolation, but rather a symptom of the wider issues at the club and its decline since 2017, under the ownership of Chinese businessman, Dai Yongge. Dai purchased the club on the eve of their 2017 Play-Off Final with Huddersfield Town. Dai had tried to get into Premier League ownership the previous year with a takeover bid of Hull City, only to see it collapse. But when Reading found themselves on the brink of returning to the topflight, Dai saw the opportunity to jump on board and ride the Reading train all the way to the promised land. Dai had previous experience of club ownership back home with Beijing Chengfeng, who went bankrupt under his stewardship. That, and speculation the Hull City bid had failed the ‘fit and proper tests’, should have served as a red flag for any future club that fell under his crosshairs. Unfortunately, neither Reading nor the Championship failed to heed the warnings. Dai’s Reading bid went through, but his grand plan backfired when Reading lost to Huddersfield Town on penalties after a 0-0 draw. Ever since then, it has been a downward spiral of managerial merry go rounds, best players departing at well below their value, reckless spending, transfer embargos and point deductions due to financial mismanagement.
In 2023, just as Reading Women dropped into the Championship, Reading Men dropped into League One, rubber-stamping the double failure Dai’s tenure had been. With the money now run out, Reading’s need is dire, yet Dai refuses to sell, putting the club on the verge of dissolution.
The fans have exhibited their disdain for how their club has been mishandled and mistreated by Dai’s ownership, pleading with him to sell the club. Last year, tennis balls were thrown onto the pitch during their men’s team’s 2-1 win over Bolton. In their home game against Port Vale in January, 1,000 fans stormed onto the pitch, forcing the game to be abandoned. During their Women’s Team’s Continental League Cup tie with Arsenal, both sets of fans led a united applause in the 16th minute, highlighting that it is not just Reading fans, but all fans in football, that share anger towards how this once great club has been allowed to rot and decay under Dai’s ownership. The game should have been one of celebration, marking the long-awaited return of Leah Williamson from her ACL injury. Instead, it represents one of sadness, as it also marks Reading’s final game in the competition for the foreseeable future.
The protest group ‘Sell Before We Dai’, has been campaigning since June 2023 to get the owners to sell up and leave, with protest marches and statements on social media, keeping Reading’s failing existence in the public eye. Back in March, when the owners attempted to sell Reading’s own training ground to local rivals Wycombe Wanderers for half its value, they protested outside. Wycombe have since declared the deal is ‘on hold’. Following the news of Reading’s withdrawal from the Championship, they released a statement, calling it ‘The Darkest Day Yet For Reading FC’, branding the decision ‘an absolute disgrace’, pleading with Dai Yongge and Dai Xiu Li once again to sell the club, and thanking those who have worn the blue and white hoops, hoping they find a club where they ‘are treated far better than this club has treated you’.
However, despite the noise, the protests, the anger, the sadness, the academy being scrapped and the women’s team now on the brink of folding altogether, Reading remain tied to an owner who has no care for them, trapped within his grip, oxygen squeezed out of the club, with no fairytale miracle in sight to save them from extinction.
Reading’s plight is far from a one-off case. Flick back through the history of the WSL and the Championship, and it is littered with clubs dropping out of the leagues due to administration, licence failures, or financial troubles. In 2017, Notts County, who were one of the founding teams of the WSL (when they were known as Lincoln Ladies), collapsed just two days before the new WSL season was due to start. With the club struggling to fend off winding-up petitions from HMRC, the women’s team was sacrificed to keep the club and the men’s team afloat, leaving staff and players without a club to work or play for. For too many clubs, simply removing the women’s team is an easy solution to solve any monetary issues they might have and mask their own failures. Notts County and their men’s side survived, but their women’s side paid the price. In 2015, they had played against Chelsea in the first ever Women’s FA Cup Final to be hosted at Wembley. Two years later, they were no more.
There still remains a misogynistic bias towards men’s football at the senior level of football clubs, seeing women’s football as an act of charity, rather than a group of players deserving of as much support and respect as their male counterparts. Nowhere was that more evident than at Manchester United, who in 2005, disbanded their Women’s Team, not because of financial struggles, but because they deemed it not part of their ‘core business’. They saw women’s football as a ‘community partnership’, and it was never their ‘intention to become involved in women’s football at a high level’.
It was a call that paid no heed to the desires of young female fans, wishing to play for the team they adored. The scale of the incompetence exhibited by the Glazers was even worse, considering that just days earlier, Manchester had hosted Euro 2005, the showpiece event for women’s football, that could have inspired a new wave of young players to play for the club, and help it rise to the top. Instead, the likes of Katie Zelem and Ella Toone were forced to play at rival clubs like Liverpool and Manchester City, until their dream club finally reformed.
Yet, even now, those biases remain at Manchester United. Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s ‘First-Team’ & ‘TBC’ blunder during an interview with Bloomberg, and the decision to evict the women’s team from their own brand new dedicated training centre to allow the men to train there instead, hints of a club that has failed to learn from their past mistakes and refuses to embrace the notion of ‘two teams, one club’, that the likes of Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal have.
Reading Women are not the first club to be destroyed by despicable ownership, and they won’t be the last. It has been known for a long time that ownership tests are not up to scrutiny, and in all likelihood, there will be future Readings to come unless change is implemented, whether it be improved tests, stronger legislation, or the long suggested independent regulator. Whatever happens, assurances need to be implemented to protect the women’s right to play for the club they love. Safeguards have to be built to prevent owners callously dispensing with one of their football teams, and not respecting the people that play and work for them, especially when finances might be stretched. Take the case of Thornaby FC, who in June 2024 attempted to wash their hands of their women’s team and academy, with a ghastly statement posted online explaining their position, citing low staffing levels impacting the day to day running of the cub, and ‘the only way to continue was without the women and running with only the men’s team as before they came to the club’.
Luckily, Thornaby were saved, as within 12 hours, the chairman, who had voted against the notion, had dissolved the committee and reinstated the women’s team, but only after a massive social media backlash exposed their decision to a world which will no longer tolerate this bygone stance on prioritising men’s football over women. Other teams have not been as fortunate as Thornaby FC, and unless the world changes, their story will continue to be repeated elsewhere.
As for Reading, their only hope now is for new ownership, ownership that will clear their debts, invest in both teams, support the club and respect the fans, although that hope is fading, and fading fast. For Reading Women, if they can be saved, they will be playing back where their story first started, in the Southern Region Women’s Football League. It brings their story full circle and brings about a sad end to what was once a brilliant, well respected, well administered football club.
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