Wandy

Can we have a poll up to see how people think this will go? A simple yes/no to will it go through. I’m firmly in the no camp FWIW.

I think if anyone was likely to sue it would be Ashley. I imagine he is urgently in need of that £300m. Staveley wouldn’t be far behind him too if she loses that £17m. Having said that, I doubt that this could be dragged through the courts. More likely to see all parties shuffle away in embarrassment IMO but, even if there is a court case, I don’t see how that would help the sale of the club to the Saudis as the deal would be over and the club available again to be bought by a new party.

I'm not convinced by that last sentence given what comes before it... I'm probably being pedantic because I understand the sentiment and feel like we should be able to support a football team without feeling implicated in atrocities in the Middle East. But "I don't give a fuck, I just want their money" is the kind of comment on social media that's got the likes of Jonathan Liew frothing and generalising the wider fanbase as a set of people 'showing the middle finger' to anything that isn't solely to do with the progress of their team. Which I don't think actually is a fair representation; it's just emotion and frustration at the delay. I don't care if clickbait journalists are frothing either. In addition though, I'm afraid it might be an idea to accept that they are correct on this, and the wider fanbase are showing a middle finger to anything that isn't soley to do with the progress of the club. Like I say, I do care about human rights and want to live in a fair, progressive & unprejudiced world. But being owned by a regime who have a contentious record in human rights won't taint any ejnoyment I get out of NUFC being successful under them.

I couldn't give a toss if there are other interested parties or not. It's this current lot or bust. No other buyer will look to invest in us as heavily as the Saudis or try to grow us as significantly on a sporting level, and any American buyer will just be a glorified version of Ashley. No thanks. In my 35 years of supprting NUFC I have always believed we could be an elite club with the right people running it. I believe that those exact people have now finally turned up. If the PL reject this proposal from them then that's me done with football. With the way the game is now, no other other owner would bring with them the total committment to ensure that NUFC fulfills it's potential. If that now makes me a glory supporter then I am ok with that. I have done my time watching unambitious and parasitic owners dismantle this club and actively try to work against its potential. I have no more time or energy to follow the events of another takeover farce if this one falls through. I couldn't give a fuck about the human rights angle either. I don't care where Saudi Arabia are as a country in terms of human rights, where they have been or where they are going. I just want their money for us as a club and the investment they will bring to our city. That's not to say I don't care about human rights. I do. And if their relationship with NUFC improves their development as a country and makes them more civilised then great, but I wouldn't lose a second of sleep if it doesnt. This is what the vast, vast majority of our fanbase will be thinking too. And if being owned by the Saudis makes us the most hated club in the country then bring it on. It won't though. At worst we will be Marmite, in the way that Man Utd are. There is absolutely nothing to lose with this takeover going through. The club is currently dead, replaced entirely by SDFC. If this proposed regime somehow does not work out the way we hope and it ends in disaster then we will have lost nothing as the alternative would have been obscurity and an inevitable third relegation under Ashley.

Not a peep out of John Richardson now either? So much for the "deal approved, announcement imminent"....

Got to suspect something is up when this prick gives out good vibes for us. Probably double bluffing as he knows it will be blocked so wants to give us false hope.

This farce has now got the same "quietly fizzling out" feel as last year's fakeover. This time last year the big deadline was Rafa's contract expiration date and we all were pinning our hopes on a last minute announcement that the deal had gone through & Rafa was staying. Instead, what we got was the shell shock of no takeover, Ashley remaining & Rafa gone. This year the big deadline is now awaiting the decision of some ludicrous WTO report & whether the buyers will pass the piracy examination. I can see us getting the exact same kind of shock this month with no takeover allowed & Ashley here for a very long time. Grim.

I'm just trying to imagine the scene. The PL have completed their checks and are now on the video link to Yasir Al-Rumayyan... "Hello Mr Al-Rumayyan, we have concluded our investigation and looked at your proposal for NUFC and it is certainly very impressive. However, as you know, there have been several instances of televised PL games being pirated by an organisation in Saudi Arabia. We have consulted our legal team with regards to this matter and they can find no legal evidence that proves that you or anyone involved with the Saudi PIF contributed to this piracy. However, in our considered opinion, we believe there is no smoke without fire and on those grounds we regret to inform you that we cannot allow your purchase of NUFC. Many thanks for your interest though" Aye, righto.

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. I find it incredible that a group of people could go to so much trouble negotiating a deal to buy a club, investing countless hours of manpower - at a considerable financial cost - to strike a deal with the seller, and then risk a deposit of several millions of pounds not being refunded. All in the full knowledge that the deal could be scupppered and all of that invested money lost simply because the people running the PL can turn you away based on their "opinion". Then again, this is the world of football, completely out of kilter with the real world, so it is probably true.

I am starting to think this too. Which is utterly ludicrous if true, and just shows how amateurish the people who run this league really are. Can see this rumbling on into the first couple of weeks of the restart.

Are you really saying you can knock a multi-million pound deal back, based on a reasonable opinion without evidence Well thats exactly what the rules say so yeah The Saudi reaction to a knock back based specifically on piracy would be interesting mind. The PL would essentially be saying that the Crown Prince of a sovereign state is Del Boy Trotter. I'd be amazed if they took that lying down tbh. I don't think they would take it lying down but doubt that any appeal would involve them still trying to buy us either. They would just want compensation for the embarrasment of it all. If this doesnt happen at the first attempt there wont be a 2nd attempt IMO. The whole future of NUFC is on a knife edge.

Yes. And this lot are in control of the richest league in the world? Dear God.

So in that case the PL is just a glorified Country Club and if they don't like the look of you, based on their own little rule book, then you are not getting in?

Yasir Al-Rumayyan maybe?

I worry about the emotional health of our support if we are sitting here this time next week and nothing has changed.

One year to the day that last year's bullshit takeover farce kicked off. https://www.newcastle-online.org/forum/index.php?topic=99882.msg6996473#msg6996473 I feel sorry for all of us once again just reading the excitement of the first 24 hours compared to what eventually transpired.

If it's still not done by this time next week Edwards' tweets are really going to go nuclear.

I always remember Keys on a prime-time evening, weekly Sky programme called "The Footballers Football Show", where there were footballer guests and a studio audience, after NUFC had done something, or bought someone (can't remember what) Keys said (with belief) "Are Newcastle United now the biggest football club in the land, even bigger than Manchester United". He has sunk since then !! I always remember Keys on a prime-time evening, weekly Sky programme called "The Footballers Football Show", where there were footballer guests and a studio audience, after NUFC had done something, or bought someone (can't remember what) Keys said (with belief) "Are Newcastle United now the biggest football club in the land, even bigger than Manchester United". He has sunk since then !! Definitely. He really was a fan of us back then. Which makes his current u-turn even harder to fathom.

I always thought it was Andy Gray. My memory might be playing tricks on me but I always remember it being after that Oldham match, when we beat them in style and Andy Cole truly introduced himself as a top class striker. When Keys was doing his summing up towards the end of the programme he just came up with the tag "The Entertainers", mainly due to the rip-roaring way we had been playing in that first part of the 93/94 season and especially in that game.

The strange thing about Keys is that in the 90s he was very enthusiastic about us, and it was him that tagged us with the "Entertainers" label. Pretty sure it was after the Oldham away game in November 1993 where we won 3-1 live on Sky. He was actually likeable back then when he was Sky's frontman.

Their Mackematics are incredible. Apparantly "The River Tyne is a natural geographical barrier".... hence the excuse given for their lack of support north of the Tyne. So why is it then that NUFC have so many supporters south of the Tyne? Pretty much all of Gateshead is black and white, together with half of Durham and significant numbers from Darlington & Hartlepool. Also, their claim that South Tyneside is 50/50 is a total fantasy. It's at least 65/35 in our favour, and that is being generous to them. They just can't accept that both clubs have access to the same catchment areas, but we are simply more of a draw than them. Love too how they say that the takeover won't have a big effect on our fortunes as the top players "won't want to come to Newcastle", then in the same breath say that we get better crowds because "newcastle is a major city that has the pulling power of any other major city". They really are all over the place. Can't wait for them to invent the "2020-er" phrase soon.

Assuming that this is true, maybe the PL have given the buyers a verbal notification ...via a phone call?....that the tests have been completed successfully but this needs to be submitted in writing before being classed as officially tied off.

According to the all knowing Mackems this Paul Smith bloke has been outed as a bullshitter and was peddled by The Sun a few years ago... https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/march-to-may-2020-newcastle-ufc.1507830/post-31691560 Very seldom I agree with them but they're probably right about this one.

Ha. Wow. That’s your shortest post today. I’m claiming that as inspired by me. I know you know it’s on last page and many times before. So I’ll make you a counter offer, just to you... I’ll give £1,000 to the food bank if we get taken over before 15/6. You give £500 if we don’t. That’s only half a fixture in your new box ;-) Out of interest, why do you think it will not go through before then? And does this mean you don’t think it will happen at all?

A club as opposed to prospective owner or director? Yeah sorry, that should have said buyer...not the club. I guess this is the only thing that can stop it now.