Ankles Bennett

Watched most of the games so far and this "tournament" football is absolute shite!! Its all about keeping the ball!! None of the forwards are prepared ro take a man on. The number of times the full/wing backs are in a position to cross the ball only to play it back until it ends up with the centre backs who pass to midfield who then play in the full/wing backs who play it back again. Rinse repeat for 90 minutes!!!

Agreed, but the solicitors chasing it could have amounted to an attempt to gauge a settlement figure in the event they looked like losing!

We are told Ashley is furious that the PL failed to approve the sale of the club, and I find myself wondering whether, if Ashely loses the CAT and/or the Arbitration so the sale collapses completely, he will still be so furious that he pumps money into the club in order to sign the players that will allow us to gate-crash the big 6 and take a great big slice of the PL prize money and European places, by way of his revenge on the big 6. This rumour of a £50m war-chest could just be an indication of this. Alternatively it could just be he sees an opportunity, given the effect on PL clubs financial turnover, due to covid, whether he sees an opportunity to buy promising young players at knock down prices. Imagine buying Willock type players for £10m to £15m when in normal financial circumstances they would cost £25m to £30m. Selling on those players in 2 years time could turnover a huge transfer profit for the initial outlay of £50m.

Be nice if our takeover goes through and we hijack the deals for Kane, Sancho, Haaland etc. I can dream cant I?

The PL need to be careful when imposing punishment. Too harsh and the big 6 will just say sod it we are off to join the ESL!!

I seem to recall reading an article where Carroll said he didn't want to leave and wasn't given a choice in the matter!

I work with Barristers on a regular basis arguing points of law in tribunal cases, and trust me De Marco will come at this case from every conceivable arguable angle in order to counter whatever argument Bird & Bird present. Unfortunately so will Bird & Bird. Its just a case of is De Marco better at his job than Bird and Bird!!!

Totally agree!!

But the point that is being overlooked is BeoutQ were stealing from Bein not the EPL clubs. If Bein coudn't prevent the piracy, how could they expect the EPL to do so. The only way that could be achieved would be to block Bein surely, because it was their broadcasts that were being pirated, not the EPL broadcasts. Bein arguing that the Saudis were stealing from the EPL clubs is nonsense. BeoutQ was stealing from Bein who had already paid £500m for the right to broadcast to the MENA region and that money went to the clubs via the EPL. What Bein probably meant was they would not pay £500m for the broadcasting rights in future due to the piracy, which meant the EPL clubs would get less, hence the roundabout route of arguing the Saudis were stealing from the clubs, which to me is a rather tenuous argument.

Whatever argument we rely upon in the CAT and Arbitration tribunals it must be supported by binding case law otherwise our argument will be as effective as a bucket of water full of holes.

I've thought this from the start. The Reubens will be he developers the Saudis use to develop the run down areas of the city.

But if they are separate entities the KSA has no ability to control ergo it is surely all about separating the two?

So why didn't the other member clubs object to the Glazers takeover at ManU or the Fenway group at Liverpool or Stan Kroenki at Arsenal?

Again surely this would be breeching the anti competition rules/regulations

It may be the EPL's insurers are wanting to know how much compo they might be liable for. If its a lot and I expect it will be knowing Ashley, they may advise the EPL that they will only cough up a certain percentage of the compo if they lose, and the EPL will have to find the rest, or agree to settle out of court and allow the takeover to go through.

They might be putting us in check but certainly not checkmate. We are just luring them in then just when they think they have won, it will be BOOM!!! they will find themselves in checkmate!!!

Bein are not a partner of the epl they are just a customer of the epl. If they don't want pif to have a share in nufc they can refuse to bid for tv tv rights but that's just cutting of their nose to spite their face. The epl product will be snapped up regardless!!

It's all very well the EPL arguing that as head of state MBS should be a director and as such NUFC would be owned by the KSA, but judging by the volatile nature of KSA governance MBS could easily be deposed as head of state by the King in the same way the previous royal incumbent was deposed and replaced by MBS. So MBS would no longer be a representative of the KSA state. Would the EPL then demand that his royal replacement becomes a director of NUFC! I think not unless they want to cause an international incident. It's just nonsense that MBS should be a director before the O&D test can be concluded!!!

It's paytently obvious that Ashley arguing that the failure of the EPL to approve the change in ownership has denied the fans the takeover we deserve, is simply another lever to use against the EPL. Its simply pointing out that its not just Ashley who is disappointed at the failed takeover, its the hundreds of thousands of fans, and it puts the EPL in a poor light denying us the chance of competing with the big 6!!!

I think there is more to this takeover than we realize. Ashley is adamant he will only sell to the Saudi led consortium which makes me think he has an agreement to the sell open his SD shops in the KSA in particular in that new city KSA are building where the focus is to actively promote sporting health!!!

Case-law!!!!

That presumption is enshrined in caseload in the UK.

Do we know whether MBS has been made a director of any of PIF investments. If not then its difficult to see how the EPL could argue he would be an undisclosed director of the consortium.

If they know how vocal he is why not! There is also an element of deflecting their involvement and putting the spotlight and the blame onto the big 6 in the hope they keep their jobs!

I'm wondering whether Masters and Hoffman were complicit with the big 6 in the EPL not approving our takeover, but after being screwed over by the big 6 regarding the ESL, and threatening to leave the EPL, they have decided to leak evidence to Keith of the big 6 ordering the EPL to block our takeover. That would be quite a bomb and would really show up the big 6 as self serving, greedy and arrogant!!!