Chris_R

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.

Why do people keep saying this? The directors' test criteria are copy and pasted literally on this very page for you yet you still say the above. For clarity, here's the relevant part: There is NO requirement for anything to be proven. None. It's "in the reasonable opinion of the board". That's it. No conviction is required, no "hard evidence" needed, the board just have to decide, in their own opinion, that if they'd done this in the UK then it would be "on offence". That is all that is required to fail this test.

Well they don't. They dictate whether that business can compete in the PL though.

Slowly? Slowly? In one fell swoop, he's ruled out 50% of the world population in a single tweet. If he keeps that up, in 32 more tweets time we'll know exactly who it is. Just got to pay attention to the clues now.

His only sources are at Ashley's side, he admitted it the other day when he tweeted saying the seller had heard nothing but he had no idea about the buyer, or something like that.

It doesn't say that anywhere. Actually I'm fairly sure the opposite is true, that it doesn't have to be proven in a court of law. Nobody will want to hear that though...

Been like this since day 1. He's not gone until he's actually gone. Better to always expect the worst. That way you can only be pleasantly surprised, not bitterly disappointed.

Ok. Anything good?

About 2 weeks ago.

Thing with the players allegedly wanting Bruce to stay is a complete non-story. He's the incumbent manager. They have to say this. No player could be contacted by the press and say "You know what? I'd prefer someone else.". It doesn't matter what you actually think, the only thing you can say out loud is that Bruce should be given a chance so I put no store in that at all. However if they genuinely DO want Bruce to stay, they should be shot with shit.

Since we were supposed to apologise to him if he was right, I guess he's going to log on and apologise to us now?

"Next week" for the fifth consecutive week.

Didn't it work with Ben Arfa? I remember he was actually photographed at the airport collecting his bag though it may have had nothing to do with planewatch, of course.

In other words, Ashley's camp speak to him, but he's got no sources inside Staveley's camp.

Dem bloody Saudis, landing planes across the runway instead of along it....

Awww, bew hew.

Next 240 hours are crucial

Yeah but I imagine that showcases for the locals such marvels of the future as CDs and in-line roller blades.