Matt

If only someone could invent a device which allowed communictaion between people in different places.

With the exception of NUFC of course. Form over substance.

Is the ground up to scratch for the Evostik now Paully? Must be well placed to have a tilt at the automatic promotion places.

This £55m was not shown for 2015 in the accounts for that year, but were shown in the prior year comparable for 2016's accounts. Which suggests to me a change in accounting treatment rather than a change in circumstance. Clearly it is a very long lease which is of use to the business so can only conclude this relates to either the leasehold on SJP (most likely) or the training ground. If it was a transaction with a related party, it would need to be disclosed as such.

I wonder if he'll turn out to be Humble.

We've been absolutely crap at building commercial partnerships. We're never going to be a global megabrand but there should be at least some proper effort. Do we even have anyone with proper commercial experience? Or is it just Charners and a fax machine?

£61m still to come in and £24.5m to go out. Not sure how you draw any conclusion that Ashley is stealing from the business. It seems as thought the provision for onerous contracts and the HMRC investigation provision are given as one item- note 22. Perhaps we were keen to write a few players off to mask the amount we thought could be due and thereby show our hand before the case goes to court or is settled?

Somthing isn't quite right about all this. They owed c£70m to SBC, Short pays that off and only gets £40m in return. So getting rid of it cost him £30m. That would be a remarkable piece of altruism from a seasoned distressed debt investor. Maybe SBC took a hit in return for settlement and took 50-60 on the pound, otherwise it would have made more sense to just hand the keys to SBC and wish them good luck.

Was thinking that when I saw the replay. Some photographer will have hit the jackpot.

Remarkable lack of knowing the rules from the BBC commentators.

No, he's taken no money directly from NUFC. But he does get free advertising for his tatty chav clothes shops from us via the entirely unpaid advertising around the ground, worth millions in lost revenue annually, and IIRC (please correct me if I'm wrong) the club shop profits don't go back to the club anymore. He might not have his hand directly in the till, but there's more than one way to skin a proverbial cat. None of that has anything to do with what Shelvey asked, I was just making the point that it isn't some personal tax thing. The retail setup contracts out all the ops to SD, so NUFC do not show the full value of the sales, or any of the associated costs, just a royalty payment. Given the nature of SD's business, that is probably a more efficient way of managing the operation, no idea what a fair royalty % would be though. The amount oustanding on the stadium loan was in the region of £60-70m, so the current figure on shareholder loan is mostly working capital injections when cash has been tight. Anyway, you are right to say people should forget it. I know I make this post at the same time every year, but it's an important point when considering reasonable expectations of supporters... The amount outstanding to Ashley or his holding companies may be listed as debt in the accounts but from a practical perspective it is no such thing. There is no interest paid (either in cash or in kind), no fixed schedule of repayment, and the risk and reward of the debtholder and equity holder are identical - ie that it's 100% the same ultimate party. So that full amount is in fact equity. Funding a business with SHL as opposed to common equity is standard- I often see projects where the common equity will be £50k and the Shareholder Loan in the hundreds of millions. No-one financing those projects thinks SHL is debt, it's just a more convenient form of equity, as you can get tax relief on the interest payment (this is usually the main method of shareholder return). In March this year, various charges over NUFC and parent entities in favour of Barclays were released- this would suggest that NUFC has either negotiated an unsecured overdraft or more likely, has fully repaid any previously undrawn position. The latter would mean NUFC now carries no debt.

No, Ashley the man and his companies are all separate entities. He’d only pay tax on income (interest or dividends) received from those companies- which he hasn't taken from NUFC (ever, I think).

Ashley has simply moved the exposure to a company having previously been in part provided by him personally. It’s not really relevant, could be for any host of reasons, most likely for tax management. Net impact is Ashley injected £15m into the business.

Exactly! That extra 6 weeks makes little difference in terms of the time since the end of the period and now. These are numbers from June 2017. The only possible trick would be if our PL survival somehow impacts FFP (and I'm not sure how that now works as it seems to change so much) which is perhaps why we've taken the onerous charge. This will all make a lot more sense when the full accounts are published.

He did put in £15m though. That's in the press release. So I'm on that planet right now.

What exactly are you expecting? And a strange thing to say when the figures today show he put in £15m in 16/17.

It will be in the full accounts under trade debtors Not seeing as they've clearly stated it as being related to payments due under player contracts.

Agree with this- it's more about control than just the numbers. Of course the club always spin the results ahead of them actually being published in full so that when they do come out. I wonder whether the £30m provision is trying to play clever with FFP? Essentially those wages will not go through future P&L (although will still be in next / this year's cash flow) and if those players become useful again the provision would have to be unwound.

On the back of old numbers which he would already have known about?

I'm glad someone else is thinking along these lines. Benitez has always managed via a strategy of tension with the board. He is negotiating hard, letting things slip into the press is all part of it. Our default mode is understandably 'Ashley is fucking this up'- but what if Rafa is asking for something unprecedented in terms of control (ie they will appoint a DoF of his choosing who can act unilaterally on football business within a forumlaic budget) and really digging in. He will have to play hard to get that. OK maybe he will get a bit more money to spend, but he's never indiated he's motivated by having the biggest possible budget, just as long as he's not in the bargain bin every time. Let's say he hits a run at WH like we had mid-season. Would he survive? He has a stack of 'get out of jail free' cards here, but he's starting at zero down there.

Same.

Cisse at Norwich

GD saves us two places and secures an extra £4m in prize money.

They've been on the phone.

He did, just after saying 'some Newcastle fans may need reminding who the man who came on is' (or words to that effect)