Chris_R

This simply isn't true though. The French court case ruled that Arabsat was indeed carrying the signal, and they're headquartered in Riyadh. The bit you're citing is that they said that because Arabsat doesn't really have much impact in France, they couldn't award damages because in France there wasn't "clear and illegal disruption" to French revenues and broadcasts. It's not like Arabsat were found innocent, quite the reverse. They just couldn't be sued in Saudi because they were blocked from doing so by the Saudi government, so they tried to sue in France. And although the French court was happy that Arabsat were carrying a pirate signal, the reach of the satellite signal wasn't strong enough for it to impact French revenues. People need to stop painting this like the French court looked into Arabsat and found it was absolutely fine.

Poor geezer must be sick to the back teeth of it. I mean yeah, but it is his job. There's plenty of people earning about a third of what he gets who have to spend 8 hours a day answering shit, repetitive questions from customers. He puts out one Tweet every day or 2. I think we need a little perspective here.

It's starting to seem that way.

After all this time, absolutely nothing is worth anything unless it is either - Official confirmation that the deal is complete - Official confirmation that the deal has failed It's been "nearly done" according to "reputably sources" for about 6 weeks now.

Ashley will just be hoping he can take the money and the new owners will have to do the refunds.

There was no takeover test then. Yes there was.

I jst scroll down the page to see if there are any tweets embeded. If there is, I stop to read what its about. If not, fuck it I go to the next page. This is the way How did you both find that post, then?

Nah, it'll never fit.

If the deal you're trying to do is hanging in the balance and may get rejected, how does throwing your toys out the pram help your chances exactly?

I'm sorry, I can't agree with this. It's 2-4 weeks, historically all deals have taken that kind of time to ratify. The Man City one with 3 owners, one from the middle east as a major holder and 2 other minor holders, took what, 22 days? It is a process, yes. It is a complicated process, yes. But it's one with an expected timescale which has been massively exceeded and I don't agree that we cannot infer there might be problems from this. Similarly, people mention "project restart" as if the PL is an organisation of 3 people who all have to do any work that comes in, like they'll down tools on this to prioritise work on that when in reality the PL is a massive organisation with dedicated teams for different things and in this case they're two entirely separate things. This is taking way longer than it should, way longer than we'd expect it to, and that is worrying. It’s a complicated deal and we are living in unprecedented times due to Covid-19, any deal of this nature will automatically take longer as a result and to consider otherwise would be crazy, whether the PL have 1 man or 20 man working on this. Again, patience is the key and everyone not to worry, there is nowt anyone of us can do anyway and willing it to happen yesterday won’t work. People can work remotely just as efficiently as in an office these days. It certainly doesn't double the timescales on anything. You're right that there's nothing we can do apart from wait, but I disagree about the "not to worry" bit for exactly the reasons I've mentioned. I think these are precisely the time and circumstances in which to worry. This is overdue. This is taking longer than it should. The silence is concerning. Whilst you can postulate about this and that and clutch at straws to explain the delay, the simplest and most obvious reason why it's taking so long is because there's a problem.

I'm sorry, I can't agree with this. It's 2-4 weeks, historically all deals have taken that kind of time to ratify. The Man City one with 3 owners, one from the middle east as a major holder and 2 other minor holders, took what, 22 days? It is a process, yes. It is a complicated process, yes. But it's one with an expected timescale which has been massively exceeded and I don't agree that we cannot infer there might be problems from this. Similarly, people mention "project restart" as if the PL is an organisation of 3 people who all have to do any work that comes in, like they'll down tools on this to prioritise work on that when in reality the PL is a massive organisation with dedicated teams for different things and in this case they're two entirely separate things. This is taking way longer than it should, way longer than we'd expect it to, and that is worrying.

If you go through his comments he says a lot of waffle and a lot of stuff which indicates he’s not ITK at all. All he’s done is throw out a load of guesses. He even admits his latest comment is guess work. If you're talking about the same user, he doesn't? And if he is ITK, it's only though knowing someone at the law firm. So he obviously has quite a narrow and limited perspective on what he knows.. Anyone want to provide a link?

Tell me what's funny then Well, for starters people have said "If it's not this week, it's time to worry" for about the last 4 weeks. For what it's worth, I think there are clearly issues holding this up or it would be through by now. I don't think we need to wait until the end of this or any other week to see that.

We have never been anywhere near "this stage" in any proposed takeover in the past. I don't know when any announcement will be made, I have no idea at all . . . but I am certain that it will be worth the wait! We never had an official 'end' to the BZG takeover The PL are still processing their Directors' test.

Glad the threads back but I'm not surprised that post has gone.

#canned

Tomorrow is certainly a day.

I've made my (reasonable!) opinion clear, I've no wish to argue legalities when I'm not qualified to do so and the consensus seems to be that it would drag through the courts forever anyway. I'm just saying this isn't unstoppable, so I'll shut up now and we'll let nature take its course. Time will tell, like everyone I hope this goes through.

Why would it be astonishing for a deal to fail on one of the reasons listed in the test itself for the deal to fail? Especially given that the test says they only need to believe that in their reasonable opinion? I'd be more astonished if it passed.

So would I. Doesn't make it any less likely to happen though. As I say, I think if most of us were asked if we "reasonably believed" they had involvement in BeOUT, I doubt we'd see everyone backing them. As a government, they've already shown how petty they can be in dealing with Qatar. Just look up the "Salwa canal", where they plan to quite literally turn Qatar into an island by cutting then off from the mainland with a 70km trench dug along the border, almost entirely out of spite.

Yes.

Are you seriously saying that nobody can have a reasonable opinion on anything without evidence? I reasonably believe many things with no evidence whatsoever. Again, I'm not saying this will fail, I'm just saying it's ridiculous to suggest it cannot. There's too many people in this thread who seem so utterly convinced that this cannot in any way be stopped. You might be in for a shock.

You think that's such a reach? This thread is littered with people saying "They probably were involved in the piracy, but nobody can prove it lol". In the reasonable opinion of a great number of people on this board, the Saudi government have been behind the piracy. Now I'm not a solicitor or lawyer, so I cannot speculate on what level of proof, if any, is required to have a "reasonable opinion" on anything. All I'm saying is that it's preposterous to suggest that this cannot fail. Oh they could reject it alright but it would be a diplomatic shit show. It would be like someone telling the Queen that she couldn’t own horses because her family have a few known diddlers You're being too generic. It would be more like the Queen buying a horse off someone but then trying to enter it into a race where there was a sign up saying "if in my reasonable opinion someone in your family has done something which may lead to prosecution I reserve the right to not let you enter", and being told that she therefore couldn't enter the race. The PL can't stop PIF buying Newcastle, they can only stop Newcastle entering their competition. There's a massive amount of scope for this to fail. Yes, there'd be legal fallout, but would PIF have the stomach for the fight to own us? Are they THAT invested in owning Newcastle United specifically? Or would they just move on, and in the background sue the PL to get their £17m deposit back whilst going to buy another club? I'd suggest the latter rather than the former, and the PL could easily stump them the £17m without it even going to court just to avoid a fiasco. Guess who wins again?

You think that's such a reach? This thread is littered with people saying "They probably were involved in the piracy, but nobody can prove it lol". In the reasonable opinion of a great number of people on this board, the Saudi government have been behind the piracy. Now I'm not a solicitor or lawyer, so I cannot speculate on what level of proof, if any, is required to have a "reasonable opinion" on anything. All I'm saying is that it's preposterous to suggest that this cannot fail.

Such a court case over the word "reasonable" would take years, and have so many appeals from both sides, whichever way it went. The PL have time to do that, I'm not sure PIF or Ashley do. In the interim, the club would be unable to compete in the PL until a ruling was awarded in PIF's favour, though possibly if it eventually went their way they could sue for loss of earnings. It would be a mess. But are PIF really that determined to go ahead with this deal that they'd be happy to go down that route? Maybe they are, but equally likely they could just say "Stuff this" and go buy another club somewhere else. All I'm getting at is people saying "This can't fail" or "This is just a matter of time" or "This cannot be stopped" really don't seem to have read and understood the wording of the test. I'm not saying it will fail, but to suggest it cannot fail is ridiculous.