Reading FC owner Rob Couhig talks to us about his first five months at the club
The US businessman talks transfers, Noel Hunt, attracting new fans, and his shock at some of the off-the-pitch matters he's uncovered
Last updated 9th Oct 2025
Reading football club owner Rob Couhig has sat down with me to share his thoughts five months after taking over.
He flew in last week to watch the weekend's game against Mansfield at the SCL stadium.
But before that he took the opportunity to hold a question and answer session with supporters and gathered all the staff together to brief them on his vision for the club's future.
I spoke to him after the disappointing 1-1 draw with Mansfield.
I started by asking him why he'd decided to hold the Q&A:
RC: "A couple of things.
"We've been here now about four full months. .
"I thought it was reasonable for us to listen to the supporters and see what they had to say.
"And we've been doing a lot of things behind the scenes that it's a good chance for us to converse.
"In fact, we wrote a 120 day report, or a 100 day report, and it was so long and so lengthy and so boring that we decided we'd try and do it orally instead."
JR: "And I know you also had a staff meeting. Now, I'm not asking you to give away every word you said to the staff, but what was the general thrust of it?"
RC: "Well, we want to make sure that everybody understands our commitment to do thing in a transparent, honest, financially sustainable method.
"But one of the things that we thought was important is people understand what we think Reading stands for as a football club.
"And you know, the fact that it's a classy place that the fact that it's home for so many, and that it's an innovative place.
"I think for us, innovation is key and really to kind of give that overarching view of every game is important, but what's really important is that we're building something here for the future that people will be proud of. "
JR: "And how do you gauge the mood of the staff? "
RC: "Well, let me say this.
"The fans at the club, by and large, I think, are enthusiastic about what's going on.
"You know, it's a little it's different.
"Folks who have gotten to know us know that we have high expectations, we push pretty hard.
"And we, you know, take, for example, the whole AI thing.
"People don't quite understand it , but it's going to produce real results for us.
"We're looking at how to make the experience here at the stadium better, all of those things, and everybody's coming together.
"What I had underestimated , and in candour, what I think some of the people who were still with the club wanted me to understand was how deep the hole was that we were digging out of in terms of redoing the philosophy, and frankly, the mentality, bringing that optimism back to everybody.
"And I think we're there .
"I will admit we're doing this at 6 o'clock after the game finished, and there is a certain frustration you may hear in my voice, and I apologise for that.
"I will wake up tomorrow morning and be as optimistic as ever, but right now, this is the part of me I try never to expose to the public."
JR: "You said to the fans when you were asked a question midweek about Noel, you said, I'm not a sacking owner, I don't sack people. And I thought the words you said, actually made a lot of sense and were very honourable. But doesn't there come a time, and I'm not talking about today's result. Doesn't there come a time, though, if results don't improve? Unfortunately, you know, it is a results business and the biggest impediment to the club's future is League One football. "
RC: "Well, let's start with the agreeable part.
"The biggest impediment to the club's future is the fact that we're in the League one and it's my job, not Noel's, not the players, nobody else's job to get us out of that.
"And we're going about that process .
"People use the phrase it's a results oriented business and that's true and it's not.
"What I'm looking for is are we figuring out a way to be better tomorrow than we are today?
"Am I satisfied that we're going about that process ?
"I look at the team that we put on the pitch these days.
"I think it's better than the one we had in August.
"I think they're playing together more congruently than they were.
"It should not be lost on anybody that Marriott and Richie are a pretty good combo, and they weren't with us in August.
"And so that's coming along.
"The fact that the players fight and continue to fight is important .
"But yeah, firing the manager is never on my spectrum.
"It's just, there's so many things to go into winning and losing.
"And it's so easy to say, well, I'll get rid of the manager and that will change it.
"I'm not saying it doesn't or it couldn't.
"I'm just saying that to me , that's a pretty big bar to jump before we make any sort of decision like that.
JR: "Off the pitch have you been shocked at what you've found?"
"We have been shocked by some of the things off the pitch, by some of the problems that existed with the stadium in terms of its construction, its buildout, some of the obligations that the club took on that we were told did not exist Something as simple as the relationship with the owner of the parking lot, we were assured that we would continue on the same path as they had been, and that's cost us nigh on $2 million, over the next several years.
"So , yeah, it's been shocking, but really, again, look, I'm an optimistic guy.
"At the end of the day, we're happy that we're in this thing.
"We know it's a fight, we're going to fight every day to make it better."
JR: "Do you think there's more to be done in terms of bringing back some of the fans that turned away from the club and some that could become new fans?"
RC: "Yeah, and look, the easy answer is to say if we had won nine of our first ten games, you would have trouble getting in here, but my job is to make sure that people want to come out here regardless of how the club's doing on the pitch .
"We are working constantly to try and figure out how to improve the stadium.
"You ask earlier whether or not there have been some things that are disappointing.
"I think I'm personally disappointed with how long it's going to take us to convert the stadium.
"Something as simple as dressing out the dress dressing rooms or the bathrooms .
"We're working on it.
"They no longer stink, but that's a long way from being pretty.
"And we want them to be a place that feels like home, you know, and that people are proud of.
"We want more fans to come here because they know that it's going to be a good time and it's safe and it's affordable , and it's a great way to be part of their community.
"And so, yeah, we've got to do a lot more in reaching out to this community."
JR: "Do you think that the club is doing enough of that to get out and be seen out and out and about and encourage those people to come and enjoy, as I say, not just a League One football match, but everything that goes around it?"
RC: "No, we're not.
"But we have, you hate to keep saying we have plans to do this, we have plans to do that, but we do.
"And we know that we've got to get into the centre of the city by way of example and do more.
"We have to do more reaching out.
"You know, it was great to see the various kids teams that were here today.
"We've got to do more on that.
"And the problem is, it's not a light switch, where we just flip and say, oh, look at us, we're now part of the community.
"It requires day to day work, and it's not going to be easy and it's probably going to take us a better part of this year to where people really feel like, again, it's their club and they want to go.
"One thing that's sort of counterintuitive, I suspect, is because the fans in the club were up against it for so long and kind of felt it was them against the world , they became very tight knit, and weren't bringing people on the outside had kind of stopped being part of that group.
"We've got to make sure they know, and I know the fans who were long suffering want them to come back to the stadium.
"I just I've got to do a better job of figuring out how to entice them here.
JR: "You've got a university about a mile away with 20,000 students. Are you talking to them?
RC: "Yeah.
"I know that Neil Peters has had very direct conversations with them.
"We're talking with them.
"You know truthfully, we've talked about that other university, not too far away from here about doing things together.
"I even offer to give them a speech if they want one, but then again, that's not unusual.
"I'm willing to give almost anybody a quick speech."
JR: "Retail, your wife has been heavily involved in bringing the shop, the retail shop here in house. But again, I want to hit on that subject I hit on there. There's no physical presence of the football club in the town centre. I know you're a man who likes profit, but would you not like to have some visible presence, especially leading up to Christmas, where people see the club and feel part of it?"
RC: "I suspect they will see the club and feel part of it in the centre of the city before Christmas."
JR: "Any more clues?"
RC: "No.
"I will say this.
"Opening the shop, fanatics did a good job while they were here.
"It was time, though, for a change out .
"One of the issues, and people won't see much change because we basically just bought out their stock.
"But we have some things planneded in the next three weeks .
"We'll have our first and only sale.
"If you ever know anything about my wife, she does not believe in selling anything at a discount, but we're going to have a big sort of blowout of tons of stuff that we have purchased from fanatics as part of our purchase of the right to sell, and we'll do that, and we're going to have it on a day in which we have everybody out here to watch the club with an open training, and there'll be a real and it gets into your question, which is how do you bring the fans who are not the regular fans here?
"It'll be on a nice day where people will come out and we'll have special things because I always take care of our season ticket hold, especially.
"But for everybody to come out and it'd be a real good day, probably the biggest day in terms of non football since the Bearwood day.
"And in many ways, it'll be similar to that in that I don't think other clubs do these types of things."
"I'm sitting here trying to remember the date, I want to say, sometime in the third or fourth week of October.
"It'll be announced shortly. "
JR: "Rick Catania was here today, one of your investors. How often do the investors talk? How often do you get together? And is January a topic that you're talking about and the transfer window?
RC: "Series of questions.
"Todd and I talk every day, but we have lots of businesses together.
"Rick and I Rick's a real fan of football. And a former player, and so he will talk to me two or three times a week.
"Ross and I talk once a week, maybe once every two weeks.
"He's got his club in Israel.
"He's trying to get straight and make sure they do well.
"Todd and I, I guess we didn't make a big deal of it, but we put a bunch of money in for this recent transfer window.
"We wanted to make sure that our SEMP was high enough to accommodate the likes of Matt Ritchie and Jack Marriott and others, and we've done that.
"We just recently put in some more money.
"So we're building that up for January.
"But one of the things I think I allowed us to do that was a disservice was in the last transfer window, it became the only topic.
"Even after the season started, who else can we get?
"Who Who else can we get?
"We have a club made up of guys who can win in this league.
"I'm absolutely convinced of this.
"So I don't think that we're sitting around saying, should we husband this amount of money for then
"There'll be more than enough money if we need to do something, or if we want to do something .
"But it's not a topic of, let's wait till January.
"We have got to be going about our business now.
"This club is good enough to win now and we will win now."
JR: " I've met you a few times and I feel like there's some negativity around you. Has this been too much for you? More than you expected?"
RC: "Oh, no.
"Absolutely.
"I still love this challenge, and I'm gonna do it we're gonna do fine with it.
"What you're hearing is, is that I just watched a match I thought we could have won .
"And it's like anytime you don't win a match, you think you could have won.
"These a little bit of postpartum blues of should we have done this?
"Mostly, I think, what should I have done differently?
"But the last time I checked, they haven't let me kick a ball in earnest .
"I don't suggest formations or whatever.
"So, yeah, and maybe you're getting a little bit of me just being tired, having flown overseas and then working for the past three days.
"And , yeah.
"But no, no, no negativity whatsoever.
"What I would hope you get from it is I believe we have a winning club and we're going to win.
"It's just, you know, sometimes you watch a striker who doesn't strike, and then he makes that first strike, and then he makes a second one, and it takes forever to break the cherry, so to speak, and get the first one, and then they do it.
"I think that's where we are as a club.
"And we've done very well, if you look at it over the past five games.
"And then today we got a point, even though we weren't at our best.
"So if you look at it from that way, we should be optimistic.
"If you look at it from the other way, we should have gotten three, It's a little bit of frustration.
"And I think the players feel it.
"I think Noel feels it.
"I think the fans feel it.
"And maybe I'm not doing a good enough job of saying, don't be frustrated.
"This is the way life is.
"You got 46 games for a reason.
JR: "And finally, what would be your message to fans ?"
RC: "I think the best is yet to be.
"Remember what I say to people all the time.
"I wake up every day of my life, convinced today's going to be better than yesterday, and it will be."