Chris_R

There's no contradiction I can see in what I wrote? Plus having billionaire Ashley be able to afford to keep us 17th in the league each year to protect his investment and to keep SD on TV is a different level of fucked to a penniless nobody coming in and saddling us with £400m of debt and then being unable to finance anything else going forward.

"It's a gift". "It's part of a business deal with ClearTV" Whatever. They could look to find a way round it.

Not if he wants to lose a fortune in court against one of the most wealthy countries in the world. Even he is not that stupid. Which is why right now he's gone radio silent, so his lawyers have a chance to look through the contract and see if there's grounds to cancel the deal. He'll only cancel it if he can, maybe there's a way for him to do it and maybe there isn't. None of us have seen the contract so we cannot know.

There is no extra £ from Mauriss its a fiction Wrong. Qatar will, out of sheer spite, loan him the money until after the O&Ds test is passed. He'll then pay it back by leveraging debt against the value of the club like the Glazers did with Man U. We'll be fucked for decades of that happens, but to suggest Mauriss can't raise the money is inaccurate. Hows he going to pass the o and d test ? Again, missing the point. He doesn't have to. He just has to convince Ashley to sell to him so he pies the Saudis off. He probably would fail the O&Ds test but by then the Saudis will be utterly fucked off with the whole thing and incredibly unlikely to come back in. Qatar's only aim is to scupper the sale to the Saudis, not to actually get Mauriss in.

There is no extra £ from Mauriss its a fiction Wrong. Qatar will, out of sheer spite, loan him the money until after the O&Ds test is passed. He'll then pay it back by leveraging debt against the value of the club like the Glazers did with Man U. We'll be fucked for decades of that happens, but to suggest Mauriss can't raise the money is inaccurate.

But this is what Ashley and his lawyers will probably be doing now, examining the fine print of the contract to see if he can back out and take the extra from Mauriss instead. Hence the radio silence to the buyers. If he finds no way out, he'll finalise as if nothing was ever the matter. If he finds a loophole, we're fucked.

You're all giving Ashley way too much credit.

I'm more pessimistic now than I was before, if its with Ashley then something will go wrong. Its not with Ashley, he's long passed deciding on owt, he's just waiting for his money. Except he's heard he'll get £50m more if he manages to cancel this and go with Mauriss...

He did. Which is fucking remarkable. Makes no sense on any level; commercial, moral, logistical or financial. Of course it makes sense. Ashley is a member and a "passed" (fuck knows how) director. PIF are not. The PL has a relationship and obligation to Ashley, not to whoever he's trying to sell to.

You're somewhat missing the point: The Qataris don't give two shots about whether Mauriss actually buys Newcastle. They just need to stop the Saudis buying us. Ashley rejecting PIF for Mauriss achieves that, even if Mauriss then fails the tests. The Qataris also don't care if there's court action later between Ashley and PIF. They only have one aim, and dangling an extra few million in front of Ashley achieves that because he'll be swayed by £s, as always.

Clearly Mauriss, with Qatari backing, has offered £350m instead of the £300m from PIF so Ashley is wanting to take that instead. That'll be BeIN's "fuck you" to the Saudis. I say Qatari backing, it'll just be a loan until he leverages that debt against the value of the club and fucks us over for decades.

This doesn't sound very appealing.

I don't think BeIN are medalling at all, they're clearly not one of the top 3 broadcasters.

Technically, yes. Though I'd firstly imagine they're a little more lenient as the clubs have already passed the FL's O&Ds' test, and secondly I'd expect (ha!) the PL will take an ever-increasing interest in the owners of any clubs in the top half of the table as the season progresses to the point that if there were any real concerns, they could be raised with those clubs very early.

Let's face it, without the takeover we're good odds for relegation anyway. One bad injury to ASM (Or him being hawked for profit by Ashley) and we're Bruceballing our way to the Championship.

"What Bruce needs for next season" Firing?

I'll be done with football. Except my unwatched and ignored 24/7 streaming of BeIN which I'll be doing purely out of spite.

It was happening when Project Restart was out the way It was happening after the last PL game Now it's happening after the English Football season finishes? Let's face it, none of that has had or will have any bearing on any of this at all, and to suggest otherwise is bonkers.

I guess if the PL don't reject it, they can't as easily be taken to court. The constant "not passed yet" state prevents that from ever happening, they'll just wait for the buyers to get sick and pull out and then it's their fault for walking away rather than the PL's fault for failing it. The PL are under far less time pressure than the buyers.

Not if he's replaced by Mauriss. I keep banging this drum, I know, but we need to understand how bad it'll be to have leveraged debt used to buy the club from someone without a pot to piss in. £400m debt on our books will be crippling for a decade or more. Keeping Ashley is a million times better than this future.

I reckon he's got until 10pm. Although his banning has already happened, it's inevitable, there's no changing history. Thankyou !! Still confident? The longer the day goes on, the more difficult it becomes to believe it will happen (today) but there is still time left. I bet you won a fortune when Liverpool were 3 down to AC Milan in 2005. I don't think he's stopped drinking since.

The announcement this has failed will be the announcement that Mauriss has succeeded.

Me too. Plus my employer could probably sue for the list productivity as I sit refreshing this page all day.

ASM player of the season, we're a different team with him playing. Without him we'd have been scrapping round the bottom of the table, as seen by our results with/without him in the team. Genuine matchwinner. Otherwise, whether the season will be remembered as a good one or not rests solely on the PL's decision to ratify or not our takeover.

I was excited until he said "led by Messi". Kind of destroys any credibility the source was hoping to have.