Greg

It says they are uneducated and do not understand the issues at hand. I think a lot of our fans will fall into that category.

Pretty much everyone is a hypocrite in how they go about aspects of their life. It's nothing new - and will be the case here for many. It will be for me for sure. I'll be overjoyed at the end Mike Ashley's disastrous tenure, I'll be excited about us becoming a proper football club again, one that will attempt to be the best it can be. I'll be at St. James' Park, I'll celebrate when we win. I'm going to enjoy the football again. I'll judge Newcastle United on what Newcastle United does. But I won't glorify Saudi Arabia, I won't be holding up a Saudi flag or dressing like a daft c*** with a tea towel on my head. I won't personally promote Saudi Arabia. I know why they are investing in our club. It's a little uneasy, but we don't chose our owners. We didn't chose Mike Ashley. We don't have a say really. We're certainly not a fan base that can unite in any way against anything - hell if we can't unite against how Ashley has ran the club god help us. No one tells Newcastle fans what to do when it comes to going to the match do they. I'll be uneasy about it. I'll have underlying concerns about Saudi Arabia and their human rights record but it will not dominate my mind and I will do very little about it (as is now). Supporting Newcastle United will not be a political alliance with Saudi Arabia. We support the football club not the owners. I'll be a hypocrite. But that's normal. It's normal in every day life in many situations. Very very few people live a perfect absolutely life given the way the global economy works. But I'll support my team with my eyes wide open. The worst thing about this so far has been the glorification of Saudi Arabia, the whitewashing of any concerns around their track record as a country. The abuse of Hatice Cengiz, and of Amnesty International and other human rights NGOs. It really isn't a good luck. It's f***ing embarrassing in fact. This is strange, and everyone should make their own decision. That's mine, made with my eyes wide open. I'm a hypocrite. I'm comfortable with that.

Nah, with Ashley Towers in place there is no way that Level 7 can be extended into a horseshoe like the image below. There simply would be no room to do it. And if your talking about some half-arsed expansion to gain a few thousand extra seats that would be pointless. And it still would do nothing for the overall look of the stadium as the Gallowgate would have a completely different roof to the other 3 sides of the ground. That entire land behind the Gallowgate is needed to complete the level 7 stand, and allow for a fan-zone and/or new club shop etc. http://i.imgur.com/mbxzmu3.jpg?1 http://i.imgur.com/ljiKPBh.jpg You are wrong. Preferable to make use of that land but but not a necessity to extend the Gallowgate.

I spoke to Forbes, long piece here. "The uneasy alliance between football fans and billionaires looks set to continue at Newcastle. Tomlinson warns, “We didn't choose Mike Ashley and we don't choose these owners now. As football fans we support the club, not the owners. It's really complex. People will find this difficult.”" https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2020/04/21/the-end-of-the-mike-ashley-era-newcastle-united-fans-reflect-on-a-broken-relationship/#48a2bf5847ed Seemingly, not most of our Twitter following. Some of the Twitter abuse directed towards the likes of Hatice Cengiz and the glorification of things people know little about or don't understand has been staggering.

Don't believe everything you read in the papers. It will still be possible to extend the Gallowgate if this goes ahead- it will be more complex and more expensive but still possible. There are other big issues at play here as well in terms of metro tunnels and Strawberry Place itself. The transfer of the leasehold also hasn't happened yet - due to happen very soon but not there yet.

CRB checks were abolished in 2012 so you will be waiting a long time.

Spoke to Miguel Delany: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/newcastle-united-takeover-saudi-arabia-ashley-fans-supporters-a9478881.html

In fairness to Keys (yeah, I know) he just seems to have beef with Saudi Arabia full stop, mainly as he accuses them of stealing and showing BeIN sports streams. No fan of Keys but he says nothing wrong there really.

f***ing Greg beat me to it. 'last edit by Greg' nice. Damn right. I'm not the idiot off Masterchef nor I am a seller of vegan sausage rolls.

Didn't they get taken down ages ago and replaced with those tacky gold on black 'Gallowgate Stand' signs?

Easy to say when there’s no prospect of ever being put in that position.

Many clubs have it already installed. Spurs, Wolves etc. On same one seat one person capacity at the moment. Still some way away from what we see on the continent.

It's massive, and that was done with very very cheap seats to fill the gaps to prevent L7 being empty.

It isn't really - we already have a very high number of corporate commercial facilities compared to most clubs they have just been criminally underused and undersold due to Ashley's running of the club, another run of corporate space over two levels along the length of the Gallowgate and a refresh to what we have already will work very well in this regard. 8-10k extra standard seats doesn't bring in a great deal.

I think once this goes through they could sell 60-70k regularly like. Spend close to £1 billion for 10k extra seats? With what we've got (52k, brilliant location but needs a refresh) it just doesn't add up for me. Spend less than half of that on an extension to Gallowgate (would take us to close to 58k) and full stadium refresh will be more than enough.

We don't need a new stadium and will not need one for a good while. While expensive per seat - I'd still be looking to pursue an extension to the Gallowgate (and yes it is still possible but would be challenging and costly) and look to redevelop, refurbish and refresh the existing stadium infrastructure inside and out.

It was quite something when Danny Murphy proclaimed Newcastle had a train station and a river.

Not surprised at any of that but it’s yet another example of why this deal needs to happen. Tin hat on, but if Chelsea are in for a player, it's difficult for us to compete. But you miss the point entirely. Chelsea weren't even in for him. Rafa and his team had agreed pretty much everything with him, handed it over to Lee Charnley to get it done and he did nothing. Literally did nothing. A number of weeks later he signed for Chelsea to sit on their bench and play a few cup games. It's not about him picking Chelsea over us, it didn't come to that. It was as good as done. It's about the broken promises - the same s*** Keegan had to deal with. Promise one thing, do another. I don't know where that information comes from, but it's not very convincing. You say that 'Rafa and his team had agreed pretty much everything with him', but negotiations with players were Charnley's responsibility, not his. And a player nearing the end of his contract has every incentive to keep all his options open for as long as possible. He can say 'yes, I'm interested' to as many clubs as he wants. Caballero would have been 36, coming to the end of his career, so a final big pay day with Chelsea and the prospect of at least some European football might well have been more attractive than what we had to offer at that time. Plus London is often a bigger draw for a player, or their spouse. You are still missing the point. It isn't about picking Chelsea and the bench over playing at NUFC - that choice was never available. It's about the club doing nothing. Rafa and his team lined it up (in so far as they could and this is pretty normal in football) and the powers that be at NUFC did nothing. Didn't even try. Didn't even say no to Rafa. Just did fuck all. Mislead Rafa, undermined him. Like they (different people, same common denominator) did to Keegan. It wouldn't have been hard in both instances to say no to the manger. No we will not sanction any sort of deal for that player. But no, obfuscate, mislead, frustrate. The modus operandi under Ashley.

Next person to call me Gregg gets banned. I'm not that egg headed tosser off Masterchef.

Danny fucking Mills repeated back and made a load of points I'd already made?

I'll be on Talksport discussing the takeover in about 15 minutes.

Good post and fair point on the Premier League, but when the UK government welcomes them with open arms and actively encourages trade this is not going to happen and this sort of change needs to come from the very top. Current UK Government position.

Some of the opinions expressed, primarily on Twitter, are horrific. Building on what's been said on here it is very much possible to be excited about the end of Mike Ashley and the prospect of becoming an ambitions footballing entity again while having serious reservations about the track record of our prospective new owners and on a human and societal level being concerned about human rights issues in Saudi Arabia. Journalists highlighting this shouldn't be shot down and some of the stuff on Twitter is a joke, but equally Newcastle fans cannot and should not be blamed for this. Building on some very good earlier posts in this thread, many Newcastle fans will have concerns about the human rights record of Saudi Arabia, as do fans of many other clubs but this is not a footballing issue. It's not impossible to be excited by Ashley's departure, enthusiastic about Newcastle United once again being interested in moving forward and acquiring some sporting ambition for the first time in 13 years and still feel concerned about human rights issues wherever they occur in the world. These feelings aren't exclusive. You can subscribe to both of them. Newcastle fans do not hold power here nor should they. Human rights issues is not something for football fans to deal with. Be aware of, yes of course, but not to deal with and attempt to fix. Wider concerns about human rights should be put to the government not to football supporters. The UK government welcomes Saudi Arabia with open arms, as does our monarchy. The idea that fans bear some sort of responsibility for who buys our club is absurd. We didn't choose Mike Ashley and we don't choose our new owners, it's not a preference, not a political allegiance, it is modern football in 2020. We support Newcastle United Football Club, founded in 1892, not the owner. The supporters will be here before and after any owners are gone. But it is very much right to have concerns. Some of rhetoric on here and Twitter shows some up for the little morals they have.