Former Reading CEO, Nigel Howe, has warned supporters that any potential takeover will take 'at least a couple of months to be ratified.

Howe was Sir John Madejski's right-hand man for over 20 years and had two stints as CEO.

Moved into a role focusing on property following the appointment of Dayong Pang as CEO, Howe has since been reintroduced into the club hierarchy with the specific role of finding a new owner for the football club- something he had a hand in during the 2012 and 2015 takeovers.

Updating the Royals fanbase via BBC Radio, Howe was asked to put a timescale on any movement in the boardroom as supporters continue to protest against Chinese businessman Dai Yongge.

"From the time you say to somebody we’d like to run with your opportunity, it’s going to take at least a couple of months to get the process fully complete," he told Tim Dellor. "Some people say if you go with so-and-so then he’ll pass the Football League’s Owners and Directors Test quite quickly. That might be the case but there are lots of other transactional issues that revolve around real estate and things like that that need to be gone through. Also, the Football League is not just about the Owners and Directors Test, but making sure the requirements are met to do with how much it will cost to run the club over the next two years, a business plan that they say is workable, that all has to be done as part of the process.

"Everybody that has shown interest, we are trying to give them an opportunity to get a proposal to us. Once we have those proposals we will meet with Mr Dai and hopefully, he will agree on one of them and we will need at least a couple of months to get it ratified."