Reading protest group Sell Before We Dai have reacted to the news that Rob Couhig's takeover of the club has collapsed at the 11th hour, believing 'something stinks.'

The 75-year-old had funded the club with loans over the summer, which have since been paid back, and other parties are rumoured to be coming to the table.

Having visited Reading on multiple occasions and met with supporters, the view was that a deal was likely to happen over August and September.

READ MORE: Reading FC takeover deal collapses with Rob Couhig

Evidently, this has not happened and supporters are now fearing the worst.

"Gutted," the protest group commented. "We want to thank Rob Couhig for his efforts to buy Reading. We believe he was acting in good faith. We now need to face the possibility that Dai Yongge and Dai Xiu Li are not.

"Put bluntly, something stinks. While we now wish he hadn’t got our hopes up like he did, Rob Couhig was clearly convinced the deal was done. The EFL had approved the deal and having consulted with an independent M&A expert, all the publicly available information showed the deal was structured in a way that was very favourable to Couhig taking over. So what happened?

"This has to be more than “Dai being tricky”, there must be something more fundamentally wrong with the deal."

The club and Couhig are yet to publicly comment.