Greg

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.

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 shit Keegan had to deal with. Promise one thing, do another.

Should probably lock the "New Member" functionality of the forum until a few months after the takeover is completed. Once the hype (positive & negative) cools down a little bit then open it back up. That would make it a large clique.

Although words penned by Kevin Keegan's lawyers, deserves to be in the same category. "The club admitted to the tribunal that it repeatedly and intentionally misled the press, public and the fans of Newcastle United."

Reminder. Don't post owt too daft: https://www.newcastle-online.org/forum/index.php?topic=19155.0

Wait a minute - he looks familiar. Was he on the junior apprentice about 10 years ago?