Dai Yongge’s Brighton call cost Reading FC eight figures: View | OneFootball

Mr Dai has made a number of poor calls during his time at the Select Car Leasing Stadium - and the Liam Moore saga was one of them.

Dai Yongge isn't a popular figure at Reading, having guided the club from the brink of the Premier League to League One.

At the time of his arrival, the Royals were preparing for their play-off final against Huddersfield Town, but failed to perform well at Wembley and were consigned to another season in the Championship.

A few big-spending summers could have helped to take the Berkshire side to the next level, but much of that money wasn't spent wisely, and they are now feeling the effects of that.

Going from overspending to having cash flow issues, Mr Dai has seen his team deducted 18 points in the past three years, with their six-point deduction during the latter stages of the 2022/23 campaign playing a big part in their relegation from the English second tier.

Protests against Mr Dai and co-owner Dai Xiu Li have started in the past 15 months - and it seems as though the writing is on the wall for the pair.

There doesn't seem to be any turning back for either of them, so a sale seems inevitable unless the pair want to place the club into administration.

It would be difficult for them to sell the Select Car Leasing Stadium in the short term if the Royals went into administration in the short term though, because of the Asset of Community Value that's on the arena.

With this in mind, putting the club into administration would be another mistake made by the Dai siblings.

Below, we take a look at a big mistake the owners made back in the summer of 2018.

Centre-back Liam Moore handed in a transfer request back in the summer of 2018, amid interest from Brighton and Hove Albion.

Moore revealed after this saga that the Seagulls had offered up to £15m for him, which is a lot for a player in the second tier.

But the Dai siblings rejected all bids in their desperation to keep him - and they ended up tying him down to a new contract instead during the same summer.

There were rumours that he was earning around £35,000 per week on that new contract as well, but whether that was the case is unclear.

Moore went on to be the Berkshire side's captain and at the time, it seemed like a fairly ambitious move to retain the central defender.

However, it proved to be a very unwise decision.

Looking back, it's clear that the Royals needed to generate income to soak up the losses they made on big overspending.

With this in mind, a £15m deal should have been struck with the Seagulls and the player should have been allowed to make the move to the south coast.

The player had also handed in a transfer request, so it would have been a better option to cash in on him at that point.

In January 2022, with the player seeking a move away from Berkshire again, a club statement was released stating that the ex-Leicester City man had been stripped of the captaincy after asking for a transfer.

This became an untenable situation for Moore, and it was no surprise when he was loaned out to Stoke City during that window.

Unfortunately for him, he picked up an injury during his time in Staffordshire, and he spent much of the remainder of his spell at the SCL Stadium out injured.

With the player being released on the expiration of his contract, that was a real blow for the Royals, who previously had the chance to make around £15m for his signature. And it was a big mistake from the Dai siblings to keep him for so long.