Montey

Amanda was a little disorganised in the message she was trying to convey during the beginning of her call-in. Jordan then riled her up and she got sucked in to responding to his antagonistic comments about NUFC supporters. But, his firing her up allowed her to come across quite well and quite passionately during her closing remarks. So, it was a long way from a "car crash" - but it started weak, got a little ugly, but she came home strong.

Is it time, in the best spirits of Monty Python, to form a new NUFC supporters organisation? The Newcastle United People's Front (NUPF) - who's purposes is specifically to be a protest organisation, that will actually be seen by NUFC supports to be doing things without caring what their relationship is like with Mike Ashley, the Premier League, or any other sporting/political elite.

From Johnson's point of view, PIF purchasing NUFC and investing into the local area (as happened with ManCity) is the easiest and cheapest way for Boris to say at the next election, "look how I kept my promise to the North East - I said we'd bring investment to the North East and here it is!" This is why I would think that Johnson would/should be very pro-active about helping the takeover be completed.

It suggests to me that the Premier League either doesn't know how to respond or is, at the least, still trying to decide how or if they will respond.

Doesn't their "Diary" page (https://www.catribunal.org.uk/diary) suggest that the case we're interested in isn't in the near-term schedule? I would have thought we'd see 'our' case listed there, as other cases appear to be listed.

Likelihood: 51% = "more than 50% chance they'll own us." Likelihood 49% = "less than a 50% chance that they'll ever own us." Only 2% apart from agreeing.

You're wrong because you're either not paying attention at all, not paying attention to details, or only paying attention to the stuff that reinforces your existing viewpoint. Ashley nor his lawyers are required or compelled to provide any public disclosure of what they have or have not been doing. It is a completely wrong assumption that because you've heard nothing about what is happening that nothing is happening. When you're at work (assuming you've got a job) and hear nothing about what your friend did during their day, do you assume that your friend did nothing, do you assume your friend just stood on the spot where you last spoke to them and did absolutely nothing? Of course not, it's just that they didn't tell you what they did (possibly because it wasn't interesting, possibly because they just didn't want to tell you), but it doesn't mean they did nothing. No. Some bloke named Keith was working on an anti-competition case that looked like it might have some valid evidence and arguments in law. The club were so convinced that it might have achieved something that they took Keith's evidence (with Keith's permission) and arguments, added it to their own evidence and arguments, and the club have launched their own formal proceedings in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). We have no evidence whether the PL is or is not "stringing this out" as there has been nothing publicly disclosed about what the PL has or has not done as a result of the CAT case nor anything disclosed about what is being said or done by the PL to or in response to the arbitration process. Per my comment above, a lack of evidence of activity is not evidence of a lack of activity. You're going wrong by having existing assumptions (about the PL's behaviour, about Ashley's behaviour, about how processes should work if you ran them, etc) and viewing any piece of information through the lenses of your own assumptions.

When you have a large pile of problems that all need to be solved, you sort them in order of easiest to solve to hardest to solve, and solve them in that order. If you try and solve the hardest problem first you get stuck on that and don't get to solve any other problems. If you work on the easiest problems first, by the time you get to the hardest problem all the other problems are solved. So, in answer to your question, yes! We solve the takeover issue, we get rid of Ashley, we get a club that is worthy of support, and once that and associated problems are solved then we can turn our focus on to solving the harder issues related to Premier League corruption and cartels.

4 weeks ago: 8 -> 7 3 weeks ago: 7 -> 5 2 weeks ago: 5 -> 4 3 days ago: 4 -> 2 Today: 2 -> 1 I won't go lower than '1' because the PL are a bunch of bastards who could use some sort of issue (e.g. court action against them related to the takeover, FFP after takeover completion, something else I haven't imagined, etc) to deduct points and cause us to be relegated.

The Oracle service, if you read the statement, is for a particular function (operating a new statistics service) and has nothing to do with PL internal office, business, communications (e.g. email), or file server functions. In other words, that Oracle announcement has no relation nor impact on the CAT case nor the arbitration process. The Oracle announcement can be completely ignored.

But a court (probably the CAT) can be convinced to order the PL (and associated parties, including member clubs and those with a commercial relationship with the PL) to hand over materials and/or allow the Claimant to send in their own forensic investigation team (to search paperwork, emails, hard drives, etc). If the CAT's order was ignored then there would be criminal sanctions against those disobeying the directions of the tribunal. If the PL, member clubs, or anyone else so-ordered was found to have destroyed evidence then that would likely face a separate prosecution, possibly under a criminal code.

Many criminals have been brought down by their own arrogance (over-confidence) rather than by any investigative brilliance (which, by the way, is why the earlier comments, about how easy it is to forensically destroy evidence, were ridiculous. Plenty of white-collar criminals have been undone by their belief they didn't need to delete/shred things because they were smarter than everyone else; or they deleted/shredded things in a way that was clear destruction of evidence, which can also be a criminal offence or cause the loss of a civil case.)

In a manner of speaking I agree with you. Specifically, left to its own devices, the Crown Prosecution Service would not likely go after the PL for alleged violations of the Competition Act. But... if the Competition Appeal Tribunal finds, in a civil case, against the PL then it would potentially (likely?) provide strong evidence of criminal violations of the Competition Act which the CPS would have difficulty ignoring.

There are a number of elements in that document that I find interesting: Confirmation that PZ Newco Limited was the company by which the takeover was to occur. PZ Newco currently has two directors: Mehrdad Ghodoussi & Amanda Staveley PZ Newco is currently, exclisvely owned by Cantervale Limited The Claimant is referring to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union Whilst this likely would have been applicable at the time the takeover business commenced, with the UK having left the EU I am not sure how much standing the TFEU still holds in a UK tribunal The Claimant is alleging that the PL has dominance of the PL market and thereby must (due to the Competition Act and TFEU) apply rules in a "fair, objective and non-discriminatory" way. That if the PL fails to act in a "fair, objective and non-discriminatory" way it has a material impact on the extent to which member clubs can compete with each other. The Claimant is alleging that the PL has not only not adhered to the requirement to act in a "fair, objective and non-discriminatory" way, to allow fair competition between the member clubs, but has also acted to its own commercial benefit to the detriment of the Claimant. I interpret an implied allegation that the PL acted in the interests of beIN Sport, to protect the PL's own commercial interests, and thus it knowingly impeded NUFC's ability to compete fairly (that is, it deliberately prevented fair competition to pursue/sustain commercial benefits to the PL from their dealing with beIN Sport). That the PL (at least in part) blocked (impeded) the completion of the takeover, at the urging of beIN, to protect the PL's own commercial interests with beIN Sport. The Claim also appears to allege that the PL acted to benefit some member clubs to the unfair detriment of another member club (NUFC) thereby violating the requirement of the Competition Act and TFEU to act in a "fair, objective and non-discriminatory" way. In my opinion... If the Claimant (St James Holding Limited) has material evidence of the above (and it's a reasonable assumption that their QC's would advise against lodging a claim with CAT without such material evidence) then the PL is royally fooked! If the case is sufficiently proven (i.e. there is material evidence or the evidence can be identified during discovery) then this would likely lead to a CAT order against the PL and would likely (at a minimum) include the forced overturning of the ODT. It may also lead to a criminal investigation for violations of the Competition Act which could result in HUGE fines.

4 weeks ago: 8 -> 7 3 weeks ago: 7 -> 5 2 weeks ago: 5 -> 4 Today: 4 -> 2

2 weeks ago: 8 -> 7 Last week: 7 -> 5 Today: 5 -> 4

They, he (Perez), think people are idiots. He thinks people are oblivious to the self-evident fact that if the "Big 6"/ESL clubs didn't run their finances like a Ponzi scheme, player prices would be lower. What Perez is really upset about is that if the "Big 6"/ESL clubs don't get all the money, then other clubs might also be able to afford the good players because those players would be cheaper.

My suggestion... A number of the "Big 6" clubs likely joined the ESL because they have substantial debts and require Champions League revenues to service those debts; that the rise of other clubs threatens their qualification for European competition and thereby threatens the solvency of those clubs (as they would be unable to service their debts). Since they were likely joining the Super League to fix their financial issues, I suggest the Premier League impose a salary cap on those (ESL member) clubs for a period of 5 years and a further 5 years of Financial Fair Play auditing to assist them in repairing their financial issues.

If the Premier League approve an NUFC takeover, by PIF, it won't be a "backdown." The Premier League will make a statement (sometime shortly after any sale is completed) that additional information was provided, that agreements were established, and that changes were made that now allow the new owners to satisfy the requirements of the ODT - it won't be a "backdown" by the Premier League.

Last post I said 8->7. This post I say 7->5.

If sufficient evidence could be gathered to prove this in a court room, then I suspect the Premier League, Masters, Hoffman, and the "top 6" could also be pursued under anti-cartel/competition laws & regulations.

I don't think the result of a Freedom of Information request can be considered a "leak". But, I do think that ministers have a vast amount of discretionary control over how they respond to FoI requests and it's interesting what was provided as part of the FoI response. It's interesting to me that (as a result of the FoI request) this information has been provided while, allegedly, the arbitration process is underway. The FoI revelations seem very relevant to what would be getting discussed within the arbitration. The arbitration is almost certainly addressing the issue of separation and these FoI revelations have the government's Secretary of State making a definitive statement that in his eyes (in the eyes of the government) PIF are a separate entity from MBS. It could be interpreted that the minister who has released this information (as part of their FoI response) has deliberately thrown the Premier League under the bus.

Heads of state (e.g. the Queen and the royal family) and heads of government (e.g. the Prime Minister and other senior ministers) lobby foreign governments on behalf of UK owned businesses all the time, it's normal behaviour. This doesn't imply any ownership by the Queen or the Prime Minister of those UK owned businesses, it's just about opening up trade opportunities for those businesses. I don't think MBS lobbying Johnson to intervene changes anything, with respect to the question of separation.

8 -> 7

9 (trending 10) Only reason I don't rate us a '10' for relegation is because we're not actually in position 18, 19, or 20 - yet.