Matt

If this all makes him want to sell- there still needs to be a buyer.

Not much- but I was stating a fact, which you decided meant I clearly wanted Rafa out. He's the one who publicly said we had to sell to buy. Anyway, this is all minor in the grand scheme of things.

Grow up. Rafa is the best thing to happen to us in years. But what I said was correct. He plays the political game too- did the same at other clubs.

Well as long as people keep attending happily, nothing will change. My point is that the threat is there. It's not that you go from attending every game one day to full-on boycott the next.

We aren't selling players to balance the books, we're selling to buy. And the only person who has advertised this is Rafa as it's his way of forcing MA's hand in the contract negotiations which is rightly a bigger issue than this window.

A willingness to stop attending games would have a much greater impact than requiring Ashley to hire four more people to spend all day blocking folk on twitter. Of far greater impact of course would be fans working out how to buy Ashley out.

I'm just pointing out that there is a general misconception in the relative size of the businesses and that the support base will largely have a limited scope for 'action'. An empty SJP for half a game would have much more of an impact. To be honest, I don't think Ashley will give a shit. He's had this before and everyone came back so why should he think differently now?

They have 750+ stores in the UK. How many stores' sales for how many hours can you expect to disrupt? Even if there is a huge flashmob in 4-5 stores in the NE area, disrupting the store completely for 2 hours every single week for a whole year, that's 1.4% of their UK operations on an hourly basis. It's a far bigger beast than NUFC -which is why claims that his association has boosted SD's share price are fundamentally misplaced.

SD's free cash flow for the last 12 months is roughly what NUFC is worth as a business. It's a fruitless exercise. The focus should be on NUFC activities, not SD.

Not sure, Rafa has good standing with most media outlets and Bishop is not exactly a PR baron, he's a one-man shop representing a few Z-listers.

That's the one, Head of Elevation. Going down, sir?

‘I bequeth the business of Newcastle United to my dear drinking buddy Joe’

Liverpool were also heavily in debt and under financial pressure. The lenders appointed directors to the board (ex-BA guy IIRC) and effectively it was they who sold the club. I'm sure fan pressure helped, but lender pressure was key. We don't have that in our favour.

Rafa will be here until the summer. As long as we keep our heads above the water, it's a free option.

With the next TV deal not as rich as the current one, I would have thought now is the ideal time to do a deal. Maybe he looks at the sums being bandied about for mediocre players and thinks, someone out there will offer something crazy for a club and he's willing to ride it out until that sheikh or oligarch looking to 'geographically diversify away from their home market' comes along.

Sorry, that's bad wording by me. I mean as in McLaren was backed, then Ashley put more money in when we went down- I didn't mean to imply Ashley had directly funded those signings.

Rental costs haven't gone up but the total value of all future commitments has: In the 2015 accounts the value of lease commitments beyond 5 years was nil In the 2016 accounts the amount shown for the prior year was £50.4m This suggests to me that as the prior year value has been restated, this is an accounting change and not a change in underlying leases. I'm fairly sure this relates to the SJP ground rental given the implied tenor of the lease.

An outright lie. But then we've sold all the STs and the TV money will still be rolling in.

Such an extent that what? Stop with the conspiracy talk. It’s all there in black and white. I’m struggling to see how we can justifiably say we have no funds to spend so there is some kind of politics in play between MA and Rafa. Perhaps when Rafa says he has to sell to buy, this is because the transfer pot is for next season’s manager and he knows that won’t be him. All he wants to do is not have to put money in again- which he did when he gave Maclaren a load of money and he fucked it up. This is why he factors contract costs into budgets- there is some overall look-forward that won’t allow the club to go beyond a certain level. Any attempt to improve the standing of the club commercially would require a proper management team and not the skeleton rag-tag approach we have at the moment. He’s an absentee control freak- it’s the perfect storm of inaction and paralysis and I can't see how it will change any time soon.

Ashley put money into NUFC on both occasions, he repaid himself the first time after the Carroll sale, we'll have to wait to see if the same thing has happened this time- it could be one reason why there is such limited funds this summer. He didn't plunge the club into debt, this was just the mechanism of him putting more money in and out. There are other ways to put money into the club; he chose to loan the club money to be repaid at a later date on both occasions effectively increasing our debt position. I don't see what's contentious about this at all or how it doesn't equate to plunging the club in more debt? Seems to me like you are arguing for arguing's sake in some financial defense of what Ashley has done to this club since taking over. Pointing out reality doesn't equate to a defense of Ashley. Is this the SMB now and we all have to follow the line? Putting in funds as a shareholder loan does not mean they will be repaid or need to be repaid. It is purely form over substance. He could have put in equity and taken a dividend with exactly the same impact. Debt which might be paid back but doesn't have to be, doesn't bear any interest and has the same beneficial owner as the equity isn't debt. NUFC as a business is debt-free since the satisfaction of the charges in favour of Barclays earlier in the year.

It cannot be hidden. But if, for example, Ashley uses the tv money to repay his loan it won’t affect the stated profit at all. It will just reduce the company’s debt liability to him. I have no idea if he will do that but this is just to make the point that it can’t disappear from the accounts. Stop talking sense, quayside! Ashley put money into NUFC on both occasions, he repaid himself the first time after the Carroll sale, we'll have to wait to see if the same thing has happened this time- it could be one reason why there is such limited funds this summer. He didn't plunge the club into debt, this was just the mechanism of him putting more money in and out.

For the year ending April 2016, Strawberry Place Newcastle Limited (which owns the car park) had revenues of £68k from rental and £42k from advertising. The director (Ashley's stooge) was paid nil.

The leases mentioned in there are very long term- the cost to the club of land and buildings leases per year is around £600-700k per year which is the same as before the future commitments suddenly jumped to £55m (£55m/£650k= 85 years assuming no present value discounting). This increase could be a change in accounting regulation or an extension or renewal of an existing lease (such as the long term lease on the land of SJP, although I can't find any formal note about that being extended). But it has not impacted the annual cost to the club. If another Ashley vehicle has leased the land back to NUFC for 5 years that amount would be shown as falling due in that period, not beyond 5 years. And if the lease was or little or no use (or any income expecting to arise from it was less than the lease obigations) then NUFC would have to record a charge against that onerous commitment under the same rules as applied to certain player contracts.

Where's that in the accounts? Well if you say so, it must be true, no doubt. He doesn't need to squirrel money out the club. He can just do it. Like after we came back up last time and he paid himself a loan repayment. Look, the guy is absolute scumbag but this is baseless stuff.

We have to get away from this idea that Ashley is on the rob / cooking the books / fingers in the till and we're being wronged. Aside from the fact he has only once actually taken any cash out the club, he can use cash in the club to repay the intercompany loan or pay himself a dividend whenever he likes. It's shit but that's the reality. He wants to ensure there is a minimal risk of him putting more of his own money into the club and he sees the best way to do that is to just about survive in the PL and build up enough reserve to go straight back up (in theory). All supporters can do is vote with their feet and by all accounts we've pretty much sold out of STs despite a price hike for many so why on earth would he change his behaviour?