Ron Gourlay says plans are still on track to move Reading’s first team to their new training ground at Bearwood by next summer.
One of the key investments of Chinese owners Dai Yongge and Dai Xiu Li since taking over a year ago has been to progress plans to move away from the current base at Hogwood in Finchampstead.
And Gourlay says the development is progressing well.
“We had a period of bad weather but work did finally start,” said the chief executive.
“The first part of that project is the laying of the pitches and you can only lay pitches in certain conditions.
“It’s not about just laying the pitches, it’s what goes around the pitches whether it be CCTV cameras, wiring, plumbing and all sorts of things so the process is well on the go.
“It’s still the target if all goes well to have a staged entry into Bearwood which will be probably the youth teams hopefully by the end of this year and probably the first team moving in there in the summer of 2019.
“Nigel (Howe) now heads up the property side and is the person who is behind developing the big Bearwood project and our transition from Hogwood.”
He added: “I don’t see anything dramatic happening with Royal Elm Park in the near future.
“That is the same answer I gave back in July. There’s nothing really much to add to that at this stage.”
As for the home ground itself, there has been some suggestion that Madejski Stadium could be renamed to bring in additional money through a sponsorship deal.
But Gourlay quashed those rumours.
“There’s nothing really to add,” he said.
“What I would say is as soon as there are any changes alight then obviously we would let you know, but there will be no changes before the start of the season.
“I think any major changes in the football club, we’d go through a consultation period. There are big demands on the club commercially and there’s certain things that we have to look at and then at the end of the day we’ve got to decide what is right for the football club.
“There’s not going to be any panic work here. We will do what’s right for the football club in the long term.”
He added: “We’ve introduced the guys (home fans) behind the goal again and I think that’s important because it’s quite challenging when you look at the games last season where we had a full stand of away fans behind the goal creating a big, big atmosphere.
“Some people don’t like that. I’m not a big fan of having one of the prime positions in your stadium full of away fans, but unfortunately sometimes we’ve got no options.
“But we’ll look at that for next year as well.”
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Another off-field development fans are keeping a close eye on is developing links between Reading and the Dai’s other clubs KSV Roeselare in Belgium and Chinese side Beijing Renhe.
The Royals sent Sandro Wieser and Danzell Gravenberch on loan to Roeselare last season and while Gourlay cannot see a similar scenario with Renhe, he does believe there could be more contact between the three sides in the future.
“It’s very, very early really in the process,” said Gourlay.
“We’ve been working to get our own house in order and make the changes that we need to make.
“There’s more work going on behind the scenes in the football club with a lot of different parts of the organisation and operational side, building on the community, looking at ways of building the brand internationally and using our connections in China to do that.
“I don’t see player exchange or anything like that for China. I don’t see that happening but opening up maybe commercial opportunities and things like that is something we will always look at.”
He added: “We’ve got to be over in Belgium because they had two of our players on loan.
“It’s not just a matter of putting players out on loan and leaving them to it.
“These are young kids, you’ve got to be monitoring them, you’ve got to be giving them confidence, you’ve got to be speaking to them about what’s working and it’s close by, it’s easy for us to get there.
“Brian (Tevreden) being technical director of the football club is doing that himself which is great. But it’s not only Brian who will be out there.
“No matter where our players are, Brian will be out there monitoring the success of how our players are doing, like (Andrija) Novakovich at Telstar who is banging in the goals in the Dutch second division.
“We want to create the gateway for our younger players but not being forced into overplaying our younger players.
“I think for the squad going forward, more focus on quality and a gateway for at least three or four of the young players and that’s very, very important.
“That’s what you’ll see when you see announcements of squads.”
