Chris_R

It's that on a human, a geological, or a cosmological scale?

Can we shut the fuck up about fucking Leeds? Last thing I want is for us to burn through ANOTHER 999 page thread before this drags its arse to a conclusion.

I'll not even be watching it. I'll minimise it and turn the volume off. All I know is that somewhere, people analyse these kind of things and state that "1,0000,000 pirated this stream". I'll just be just putting a +1 in that column, because I can. Nothing more.

Oh if this fails I'll stream BeIN illegally, constantly, just for pettiness. I'll add it to the Windows startup process. I am absolutely that petty. If it passes, I've already said I'll buy Sky. I'm doing my bit either way, whatever the outcome.

Pretty serious allegation. Any evidence behind it or just a random thought? Random thought . These are states we are dealing with now not just dodgy businessmen . They will stoop as low as possible and then some - especially given the circumstances of the proxy war between Qatar and Saudi . It be pedantic I believe the proxy war is actually between Iran and Saudi Arabia / Shia and Sunni Islam. Qatar are caught up in it due to their ties to Iran (despite Qatar being majority Sunni). Saudi Arabia probably have far more capacity for espionage than Qatar, hacking Jeff Bezos's phone and email account for example. Yes but the Qataris got into football first the saudis are latecomers But in terms of your random thought, Richard Masters doesn't make the decision the PL board do, he's just one member of that board. I think it's more likely that the PL are just unhappy with Saudi Arabia for allowing their product to be stolen, rather than there being any significant Qatari influence on the process. Ok so enough of the rest of the board have been bought and paid for by Qatar( allegedly ) ... how many are there ? In fact who are they ? I think these allegations of Qatar being able to corrupt anyone in world football are just disgusting. We shouldn't even suggest such a thing.

Tbh I'm as pessimistic as anyone about this but "preparing for life without a Saudi takeover" is all they can do at this stage. It doesn't mean anything and is clickbait nonsense. The end of the season is upon us. We can't not plan, and we can't plan for something which hasn't happened yet. Pretty fucking obvious what they have to do, which is what they are doing.

Sometime in the first 99% of the week.

So strange that it's been the conventional way of distributing sports broadcast packages across most of the Middle East, Spanish-speaking Latin America and vast swathes of Africa for decades. So strange! Yes, it is strange because it seems like a completely backward way to offer content. What if a French company outbid all UK companies and took Bundesliga, La Liga, Formula 1, NFL and only allowed you to watch it via their set top box or online subscription service? What if within that time frame relations between France and UK went completely backwards? It's not an issue to you Penn, because you're sitting at your home far away from the area. I'm not defending Saudi in this, I'm just saying it's fucking odd when you think about it deep down. Put yourself in their shoes. But if that's how the rights are sold, that's how they're sold. If you can't watch something for some reason, tough shit. You have no intrinsic human right to watch football matches. I mean, most of the 3pm games are available in countries which are NOT the UK, but we can't watch them. That's just how life works. We have the right to watch the things we have the rights to, that's it. People in China can watch different PL games to people in Spain, who see different games to people in MENA. Everything is packaged up and sold as the PL wish, and there's fuck all any of us can do about it (legally). We, or indeed any of those countries, certainly can't just decide to rip up the agreements that the PL legally struck with any country or territory just because we don't like the deal's impact on us. That's nonsense. And yes the way the PL offer out content IS backwards. It has been for years. It will continue to be so for years because their objective isn't to offer what works best for the consumer but to maximise their own revenue. Watching SA devalue BeIN's contract by unilaterally banning them from broadcasting in the largest country in the region they hold the rights to is NEVER going to go down well with the PL. A company, the PL, whose sole purpose is to maximise revenue, has watched one of its major rights holders have their rights massively devalued and are then have the country who did that ask them to approve their ownership of Newcastle. I can completely understand why the PL are somewhat reluctant to do this.

Indeed, but completely unfounded.

Maybe they've asked the Saudis to do something, and they're not doing it. That seems to be what Jacobs is intimating. So they either do as needed, or eventually it'll be rejected. We're in the "We'll give you time to get this sorted" stage right now.

What’s to stop Saudi coming to an monetary agreement with Israel to Legally use their broadcast stream, thus bypassing the problem with Bein? Nothing, the Saudis could then legally broadcast PL matches in Israel, to Israelis. Not sure how this addresses the matter at hand though? The matter in hand seems to keep harping back to bein being blocked so the Saudis have no way to watch the PL which seems to be the main PL problem, an agreement with Israel bypasses that problem How? The Israelis are only allowed to broadcast in Israel. That's all their agreement covers. They can't broadcast that anywhere else. They can't sell the rights to broadcast in Saudi Arabia, because that's BeIN's territory.

What’s to stop Saudi coming to an monetary agreement with Israel to Legally use their broadcast stream, thus bypassing the problem with Bein? Nothing, the Saudis could then legally broadcast PL matches in Israel, to Israelis. Not sure how this addresses the matter at hand though?

Did BeIN expect to be covering Israel when they bid for this though only to have the rights taken away later, or did they already know the rights there would be done separately? I don't know the answer to this but it's an important question if that's the example they're citing. I just can't grasp the stupidity of the Saudis here, in getting right to the brink of getting this over the line and then rather than just waiting to do this shit, they decide to pull a stunt like this just out of petulance. Dumb as a bunch of fucking rocks.

He's a fraud, a Qatari patsy, a penniless nobody chancer with less means to buy this club than Stewart Donald. The only way he affords us is with leveraged debt. It will be worse than Ashley, by several orders of magnitude. We will, to coin a phrase, "do a Leeds".

I felt it was all back on track and looking positive until the Saudis banned BeIN from SA. That's the bit which has gotten the PL's back up, and understandably so. Why the fuck they couldn't wait another few days before doing that shit is beyond me. Just don't rock the boat, it can't be that hard surely?

There's absolutely no way a company that sells over-the-air antennas has the money to buy a Premier League club. - Qatar lends him £350m which he uses as proof of funds to Ashley and the PL - He buys the club - He takes out a loan against the value of the club for £400m - He pays back Qatar £375m and gives Bruce £25m to buy new players with - We do a Leeds It'll be beyond fucking grim if that chancer gets anywhere near us. It will be orders of magnitude worse than what we've had under Ashley.

^>>Monday and Tuesday: News set to break soon ^ ^ Wednesday: Slight concern that it's quiet, but still confident ^ ^<<Thursday to Sunday: Next week we should definitely hear something

Or worse, some chancer like Mauriss. At least Ashley will try and has the funds to keep us 17th-12th in the Prem.

It was done a long time ago but isn't approved? Not sure how that works. It really isn't done like. It was done a long time ago, contracts exchanged, Ashley sold to the Reubens/PIF/Staveley, but the governing body of the sport needs to 'approve' the commercially already done deal, before our owners can play football in their league. That is why approval was always definite, as the PL cannot change history, but they are extracting as much as they can from the deal, while they have this period of 'leverage'. That's an incredible spin on it like. It's wrong though. The "commercially already done deal" is dependent on the PL signing it off. If they don't sign it off, the deal doesn't happen. That's nothing to do with changing history. It's not 'spin' its is simple fact. The deal has been done, which is why it has taken the Premier League (because they KNOW the deal is done) so very long to issue their approval, as it is their one and only opportunity to get what they feel they need from the deal. This reality will be made clear, no doubt, in the "post approval" announcements. I'm trying to follow your logic here, so bear with me. You seem to be suggesting the deal for Mike Ashley to sell NUFC to the PIF/PCP/RB consortium has been finalised. You also seem to be rejecting the notion that that deal is "subject to PL approval". By that logic, why have an O&D test? Just sign the contracts, and the PL can't do anything? Alternatively, if the deal is not subject to PL approval, and the PL rejects the PIF/PCP/RB takeover, then wouldn't the consortium be obligated to complete the purchase of NUFC, but not be given approval to play in the Premier League? They would have shelled out for nothing more than the registration of the players, and the training ground That is why I say, and have always said "PL Approval is inevitable", even though they are 'using' the process to deal with as many Saudi-related problems that they can, hence the delay. You're right in that the PL cannot stop Newcastle being bought by PIF. That's a private sale of a private company. However the PL absolutely CAN stop Newcastle competing in the Premier League next year. That's what the O&Ds' test is for, not for ownership of Newcastle United. The point is though, PIF have always known the O&Ds' test can stop a newly-aquired club competing in the PL so will have clauses regarding the purchase in for the eventuality they fail the test, so effectively the test does determine ownership because nobody would want to own a club banned from the PL.

A club that reveres Adam Johnson so highly, that outside the ground they've put up a statue of his girlfriend.

Let's get it right. SA are not in a position to bid for the rights of the MENA region for two years. This week basically SA stopped being part of that MENA region when they banned beIN from broadcasting within the SA region. I think it's wishful thinking to think that SA can just declare themselves "Out" of MENA and therefore bid for individual rights. No way will that (or indeed should that) be allowed to happen because it makes a mockery of what BeIN successfully bid for and would undermine every future deal the PL would seek to make. This now becomes a legal dispute between SA and BeIN, I don't think it has much to do with the PL. It'll be up to BeIN to prove that they've been illegally banned from exercising their contractual rights in SA, and it'll be up to SA to prove BeIN have broken enough rules to allow them to kick BeIN out. If this comes in favour or BeIN they'll be due a lot of compensation from the Saudis to make up for their lost revenue.

That could've been the club motto for the last 13 years. Now even with the end supposedly in sight, we have to wait 4 times (and counting) as long as it's supposed to take.

So he can use Google then.

I'm now bored of being bored of this.