BONTEMPI

Is that font point size only available to people under 5'7? Seriously though I hate Man city and Chelsea set-ups, totally vulgar. I'd like to have a mega rich owner sure but to only splash the cash if it will seriously improve the side

Waiting to be bought is like waiting for an x factor result. The new owner is!!!! .................................... We'll find out after the break!

Break a leg Michael!

It'll be done over the weekend and then we'll have another month of the new owners deciding which manager they want. It's the way of this club.

A MALAYSIAN group has emerged as favourites to buy crisis club Newcastle United. Rival bidders are considering their next move after the Malay consortium paid a flying visit to Tyneside yesterday. Their offer does not match owner Mike Ashley's £100million asking price, and is believed to be nearer £80million. And it does nothing to clear up the mystery over Alan Shearer's future at the club. He is currently manager in waiting while caretaker boss Chris Hughton oversees pre-season training. The new owners' first priority will be to appoint a boss to mastermind a return to the Premier League after relegation last May. Shearer, who took charge for the final eight games of last season, has been waiting in the wings after initially hoping to be appointed by Ashley and managing director Derek Llambias within days of the end of last season. Ashley's decision to put the club on the market once again left Shearer in limbo, and while several of the bidders have indicated the Toon legend is their choice, the intentions of others, including the Malaysian group, are unknown. Shearer remains keen on the job, and will hope to have his answer within days with vital time having already been lost. While the Malaysians are in the driving seat and are favourites to launch a successful takeover, their move has prompted several of the remaining consortia to step up activity. An America-based group has been among the front-runners for some time — and representatives are said to have visited the training ground earlier this week — while former chairman Freddy Shepherd, the Profitable Group from Singapore and would-be investors from Oman and South Africa have been heavily linked with the club. There are suggestions that a European investor has joined a race which seems to be entering the last lap. Caretaker boss Hughton will take those players who returned to Tyneside on Wednesday morning to their pre-season training camp in Ireland on Sunday, where they will be joined by Damien Duff following his extended break. They will play Shamrock Rovers in Dublin next Saturday, just four weeks before they open their Coca-Cola Championship campaign at West Brom on August 8. By then, there are likely to have been significant changes to the playing staff as a wage bill of £74million is severely trimmed. Shearer told Ashley and Llambias of his plans — who he wanted to keep and potential targets — at the end of last season, but new owners or a different manager may have other ideas. One of those who seems certain to have no future should Shearer return is controversial midfielder Joey Barton, reportedly a loan target for Birmingham, while the Magpies are being linked with a move for out-of-contract Portsmouth defender Sol Campbell. Sun a bit slow on the take-up or takeover as the case may be.

Good! a cunt going to a bunch of cunts should be well suited.

well you're not the tallest. http://meandmybigmouth.typepad.com/scottpack/images/2008/04/07/inch_3.jpg TBH

Well we are officially a charity case now

Just edited his wiki page under personal life

I hope that isn't Malay Dollars. They base it on u.s dollers otherwise he'll have around £860

If it's a consortium who could the others be?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=ihwrmtVNBQWM Like a Malaysian Nelson Mandela

Well fuck me sideways with a bargepole! Hope so

Owens got one small helicopter

I think Fat Fred had his chance and fucked up to many times to be given a 2nd one

lol calm down. long way to go yet Aye when the club gets relocated to malaysia it will

Good old Lee. :lol: Do you need a phd in stupidity to get a job at the chronicle or does being an ugly cunt get you a job?

Leaked/made up. Maybe, but why Malaysian? I'd have thought they'd have used a country we've been linked with like American or South African. Wasn't it a malaysian group that were after Liverpool at one time? They could be just buying us and turning us into a big restaurant. Ahhh you come down to st james' pork and I show you guuud time!

barley passing is a decent skill in the world of grain football

Yes ollie it certainly is hmm hmm hmm I just mean he sounds pretty fucking certain; bids on Wednesday, decision by Friday, announcement next week. Sounds like a craig david song

Yes ollie it certainly is hmm hmm hmm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/football_league/article6613713.ece American dream looms for Newcastle (Scott Heavey/Action Images) Mike Ashley, the Newcastle owner, has begun the search for new owners for the club George Caulkin Thirty-eight days after Newcastle United suffered the trauma of relegation, their first-team squad will report back for pre-season training tomorrow. From the outside, it appears that little of substance has changed. Mike Ashley remains the (reluctant) owner, Alan Shearer is still hoping to be appointed manager, no players have been sold and none bought. Finally, however, an end to the impasse is within sight. What exactly has been happening at St James’ Park? Very little, apart from season-ticket renewals, job losses and the unveiling of a banana-coloured away kit. Since Ashley’s announcement that he wished to end his disastrous stint in charge of Newcastle at the earliest possible opportunity, activity has largely gravitated towards the London offices of Seymour Pierce, the investment bank charged with handling the sale of the club. With players on holiday and Shearer on Tyneside awaiting developments and itching to begin a task he is relishing, Keith Harris, Seymour Pierce’s executive chairman, has been gauging interest, seeking financial guarantees, opening Newcastle’s books up to scrutiny and travelling to the Far East and the United States to meet potential investors. That process is now drawing to a close. So where do we stand now? The timeline, all being well, is as follows. Harris will receive bids for Newcastle tomorrow. Ashley has stated that he is seeking £100 million for the club (he bought it for £134 million and has since invested another £110 million on reducing debts and running costs), although there are complicated factors, including the continuing legal case between Newcastle and Kevin Keegan, their former manager. By Thursday or Friday, Harris should be in position to offer Ashley his recommendation. In essence, Ashley will accept the highest bid, although Harris, a football man (and former chairman of the Football League) who has been toiling assiduously on the project, is mindful of the responsibilities of his position (in other words, he wants Newcastle to be left in safe hands). At the time of writing, it looks as if an official announcement on Newcastle’s next owners could be made by the middle of next week. Who will Ashley’s successor(s) be? As things stand, only Harris has any inkling. What we do know is that as many as four serious parties have been involved in the bidding, two of which have pulled ahead of the others. Part of Harris’s skill has been to maintain the integrity of the process and to operate in a climate of complete discretion; neither Ashley, Shearer nor other staff members at Seymour Pierce has any knowledge of the bidders’ identity. The same applied when Ashley initially put the club up for sale last year. It has been a useful rule of thumb that a majority of companies or individuals who have come forward can immediately be discounted as time-wasters or publicity seekers. The exception is a consortium with which Freddy Shepherd, Newcastle’s former chairman, has had an involvement, but it is understood not to be a prominent candidate. Most supporters will be relieved. Harris has been speaking to an American group and it now seems feasible, if not definite, that Newcastle will become the latest English club with backing from the United States. The Ashley era has demonstrated that you should be careful what you wish for, but surely any new owner would represent an improvement. What Newcastle need is good sense and stability along the lines of Randy Lerner at Aston Villa, or Ellis Short, at Sunderland, both of whom have been content to leave the business in the hands of qualified professionals and/or those with a football pedigree. What will happen to Shearer? In his last discussion of note with Derek Llambias, the Newcastle managing director - which took place at the start of last week - Shearer was informed that he was the preferred choice of manager by both leading bidders. That would make sense; while the club’s record goalscorer is unproven in the dugout, off the pitch, over the course of the final eight games of last season, he began restoring sound practices and basic discipline to the training ground. More fundamentally, he offers a precious link between the club and a group of supporters who, understandably, are verging on disenchantment. Shearer’s appointment would provide Newcastle with goodwill and breathing space, although nothing has been agreed. Relationships would need to be constructed and there is no guarantee that Shearer’s plan for the team’s regeneration, which he submitted to Ashley at the end of the season, would be accepted. Something must give, however, and soon.

Fucking hell, next week! This is dragging on like a Gwyneth Paltrow acceptance speech

Good point. Do we really want the alternative if they're trying to get the club for less than 60% of the asking price? On the other hand that might be all Shepherd's group has. He'll be paying players with Mrs Shephards home cooking.

So how much does shepherd have to rebuild the club do we estimate? Or is he going to be spending money we don't have again? Not nearly enough to make us a prem club again is the answer.