McCormick

Wouldn't it be fair to say that this is not a frivolous purchase but a key part of MBS Vision2030 plan? Are they cutting back on this project too? This keeps getting mentioned but I don't see how it has anything to do with the potential acquisition of NUFC. The main concerns with regards to Vision 2030 are: to diversify the economy away from oil (if this is related to that, there are far better options ROI-wise than buying a football club, especially in the current climate), improve the health sector, improve education, promote tourism (again can't imagine this would be enriched through buying nufc), facilitate more recreation activities and improving infrastructure. Hard to argue that buying the club ties into any of those goals in my humble opinion. You would surely level the same argument at the original purchase which they clearly were interested in, though? Personally, I think Staveley and co. enticed PIF into the deal on the promise of large future appreciations in stock valuations. Man City -bought for around 200m and now worth around 3 billion in just over 10 years- along with a few others whose values would no doubt have appreciated massively in the same amount of time, would have represented an attractive proposition to PIF. This perhaps could have tied in with their 2030 vision of diversifying their investments. The issue is now (and this is corroborated by their statement) that in such uncertain times for the game, along with the pandemic that absolutely devastated an already hurting KSA economy, the money guys don’t see the same value in this deal. Being dragged through the mud with an intensive 17-week vetting process where some foreign sporting body is demanding that the de facto ruler of the country is to be cross-examined, only makes the acquisition even less appealing.

Wouldn't it be fair to say that this is not a frivolous purchase but a key part of MBS Vision2030 plan? Are they cutting back on this project too? This keeps getting mentioned but I don't see how it has anything to do with the potential acquisition of NUFC. The main concerns with regards to Vision 2030 are: to diversify the economy away from oil (if this is related to that, there are far better options ROI-wise than buying a football club, especially in the current climate), improve the health sector, improve education, promote tourism (again can't imagine this would be enriched through buying nufc), facilitate more recreation activities and improving infrastructure. Hard to argue that buying the club ties into any of those goals in my humble opinion.

Lotttt of belt-tightening measures going on in KSA at the moment so I still don't think it's a given that they'll be back in one way or another. Still, it'd be nice to see the PL dragged through the shit for their handling of this whole affair.

I doubt PIF have any interest in being back in tbh. This is probably just a PR exercise and/or Ashley being petty (perhaps justifiably in this instance) and fishing for compensation for what's gone down.

I feel like Wilson gets mischaracterized as a target man of sorts when his play style is much closer to Gayle's than it is to, say, Carroll's. Not as flimsy as Gayle, and decent in the air, so yeah solid all-rounder.

Cool.

Wilson is essentially a Darren Bent regen; it's a shame his best days are apparently behind him pace-wise, but it's still nice to have an all-rounder of a striker that can make intelligent runs into the box and hit the ball with some conviction.

Prefer him to Wilson tbh

Same. Btw I'm not knocking Rondon, I was one of the ones defending his signing while a lot of people were being negative, I just think Wilson is a slightly better, more mobile version of the Rondon we signed.

Rondon-140 appearances, 35 goals, 14 assists. Wilson- 126 appearances, 41 goals, 12 assists.

Better player.

He might have lost a yard of pace after his last injury, but he would still be the best striker we've had in a Newcastle shirt since Ba/Cisse. Better than Rondon for sure, and I was a big fan.

It's great business for an outlay of 35 million tbh.

In a world full of shit sports journalism, Turkey is near the top of the list for made-up bullshit transfer stories. I remember I was in Istanbul a few years ago and there was a full front page article on one of their major sports newspapers with some Besiktas player's agent saying his client had "officially" signed a 5 year contract at Newcastle, he talked about the transfer fee, how much he would be making and what plans the manager had for him etc.. Never fucking happened

Your typical "puts a 100% in" jack of all trades, master of none kind of player. Decent option for a lower mid-table team, especially on a free.

All I know is that a lot of larger scale PIF projects that I have close ties to have lost funding. In a global downturn cash and liquid assets are key to steadying the economy. I just don't see it being feasible, but hope to be proven wrong.

Such guesswork I'm an economist living in Saudi Arabia. It's still guesswork, like but there's basis to it.

Such guesswork I'm an economist living in Saudi Arabia.

This is critical to their vision 2030. Not a chance that if this is revived PIF aren't the majority shareholders. You think the purchase of NUFC is 'critical' to transforming the economy of Saudi Arabia and reducing its dependency on oil revenue? So many of you have a completely distorted understanding of the importance of this deal. The Saudis are in the process of imposing unprecedented austerity measures on their population. There is no appetite for this any more. Have to agree with Penn on this. What would the ROI's be in this deal? I'm sure there are more fruitful investment opportunities to be had with that 300m that aren't fraught with political issues and intense foreign scrutiny.

We may get answers but the PIF won't be back in; there are way too many economic challenges happening in the country right now to engage in a vanity project like this.

Paisley, paisley, makes the girls go crazly

It's the biggest newspaper in KSA (along with the Saudi Gazette) and he's right, this is the first time this deal has made the news here. In saying that I highly doubt this is a tactic from the PIF.

Of course there'd be an impasse if the PL are looking to cross-examine and seek answers from the de facto King of Saudi Arabia and the soon-to-be custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (effectively making him one of the most powerful rulers in the world). Imagine the poor Saudi grunt tasked with trying to get those answers from him

Things may be slightly frosty but I doubt they'd risk losing a major strategic partner and military alliance (the Saudi National Guard are trained by the UK military and have been for a while) for the sake of buying a football club .

They won't lose face if they walk away; they control the media here they could dress this up as not bowing down to foreign influences to protect their national security/ interests. They're losing more face now if anything. Put it this way, anytime the Saudi government makes wholesale changes to it's national policy to appease a jumped up sporting institution is them looking weak and losing face. Making concessions to the PL is, at the moment, the same as making concessions to Qatar.