Former Reading chief executive, Nigel Howe, was unable to explain why Rob Couhig's protracted takeover attempt failed when facing questions from the media.

Howe, who has spent a quarter of a century working in senior positions for the club, is the man tasked with finding a new owner for the Royals.

American Couhig had expected to complete a deal to end Yongge's seven-year spell, but talks collapsed at the final stages and the former Wycombe Wanderers owner has been paid back in full.

Facing the media for the first time, Howe was unable to explain what went wrong.

"Details are tricky because we’re still under an NDA, which is one of the reasons why we don’t get as much communication from the club as everyone keeps shouting about. We would be sued if we said the wrong thing, so you have to be careful.

"It’s simple; two parties are talking to each other about a set of terms and if the terms don’t get agreed finally, the situation breaks down. That is what has happened on this case.

"I can’t go into the specifics. Whatever was set out to be achieved wasn’t achieved."

Despite being touted as crucial to the process, in a little under three weeks Howe will start his three month ban from all footballing activities.

Enforced by the Football Association for dealings with agents in 2019, the property expert will not be able to return until at least the end of January.

"From October 4, in theory, I am not allowed to be involved in this transaction. Hopefully, it'll work as it's done to date. It'll mean that hopefully we will be able to find another suitable buyer and the details of the transaction will be passed to lawyers and as with the current buyer- as it was- the senior management were all involved.

"There's still very good management team in place with the finance side, the operation side and for the commercial side. They're accessible in any transaction to put in place any questions and answers that are required going forward. I would still be allowed to answer questions on the property side, but I wouldn't be able to deal with the transaction at all.

"It's a really unfortunate situation and I've fought it, as you know, to try and get it redacted, but it's not happened totally. At least it's reduced to three."

It is now 12 months since Yongge put the club on the market, with Couhig the latest in a string of near-misses for takeover completion.

Couhig was one of four on the table back in March, with the club opting to go with Chiron due, in part, to their promise to fund the club during the process.

Now back to square one, Howe is hopeful that parties will return to the table.

"When we chose the buyer who just hasn't quite done it, we interviewed on a specific time three or four buyers, and we chose that particular buyer. And not just me, Mr Dai and Mr Dai's representatives. They said this is the one we're going to go for. I would suspect that those other three buyers, at least, are still there. So that's the reason you've got be reasonably confident."

Later in the conversation, Howe added: "There were a lot of fits at the time we needed, but one of the fits was that we needed to finance the club going forward. Part of that deal was to loan the club some money and that was really a big part of the commitment.

"In fact, in terms of pricing and everything else, and even the aspirations that people outside see about the club, it's all in a very small band. What I'm saying is that it’s all in a small number between top and bottom."