Wycombe Wanderers chairman, Rob Couhig, has admitted that the Reading fan protest outside Adams Park on Friday was 'a reason' behind their decision to pull out of buying Bearwood.

The American, who took a controlling stake of the Chairboys in 2020, went on the Heroes of H12 podcast to discuss the Chairboys' decision not to progress in a deal to buy the Royals' state-of-the-art training ground in Wokingham.

News broke of the acquisition last Thursday and dozens of Reading fans, and a few Wycombe fans, took to the home of the Chairboys to protest against the purchase.

Releasing a statement on Monday, the club confirmed that they had put plans 'on hold' although it would appear the plan has been scrapped altogether.

"We are disappointed," the 74-year-old admitted. "The club have issued a statement indicating that Faliciana have withdrawn from negotiations with Bearwood Properties to purchase the training ground currently used by Reading. We have an expression in the States that no good deed ever goes unpunished and that’s how I’m feeling today. It’s not going to slow down our club, Wycombe will continue to move forward and look for a great training ground which fulfils what we want to do as a club, and we hope for the best for Reading Football Club in its journey.

"A week ago, we saw that Reading had reached the conclusion that one way to help its out of its financial mess was to sell its training grounds. We went and Feliciana, not the club, did an agreement to see if we could come to an agreement to buy the training ground. Part of the deal was we were going to lend these folks money this week to help them with their ongoing financial crisis. In the past week, it’s become an uncomfortable situation, and we don’t need that, so we told them we’re not going forward. I feel bad for them, but they’ll come up with some other solution I suppose. I feel bad for us because it would have been the right step forward for us."

Speaking on the impact of the protest in general, Couhig added: "I don’t know if I can quantify it in a percentage, but it obviously adds to the whole issue. It’s an ongoing frustration, we live in an age of everyone having an opinion regardless of everyone having the facts. The keyboard warriors who charge off and make ludicrous statements, they’re frustrating but we’re big boys and know how to deal with it. When you’re trying to do something like this, it needs to be in a cooperative spirit. When you’re sitting there on a Friday night and seeing people putting stuff all over your stadium or the gates, they’ve limited our ability to sell tickets to Wembley in some ways, it’s just frustrating. That’s not the reason, it’s a reason."