SteV

Well now they rarely, if ever, comment on transfer/takeover speculation other than if stuff is being reported very strongly, so for them to say what they have, indicates they've been told from someone they trust.

It's going to take so time to heal the divisions he's caused. It won't be a quick process either, as whatever they decide to regarding ST's there'll be a bit of hoo-har and certain people will feel hard done by. But we'll get there. One day we'll all be friends again....

Where has he said this? Twitter - "It's a big week..." to quote him exactly

I think they’ve definitely got a contact within the club at a lower level. Often getting reports on BCD Reserve or junior matches. Could be that club staff have been told?

They wouldn’t say that unless they’d been given the nod by a contact. Pretty significant IMO. They have been pouring cold water on it all the way through and basically not commenting on it much at all. I think, like everybody else, they were just sick of all the false dawns, and as they probably didn’t have any first hand info they just really stated the bare minimum. So for them to now say it’s done, they must have been told by someone in a position to know.

They wouldn’t say that unless they’d been given the nod by a contact. Pretty significant IMO.

That was my feeling initially. But if you do that you’re probably going going to have to cancel 20/21 season altogether. Then the whole financial situation gets ridiculous.

I don't care if it's Qatar releasing the story. It's one we should be discussing seriously. It's not enough to simply acknowledge wrong-doing. A man was murdered for criticising a regime. That does not deserve death. Why should we ? It’s got nothing to do with football, if your going to attach the murder to the purchase of the club then also discuss it in relation to live nation, Warner brothers and other Saudi purchases. No one is disputing the murder is horrendous, it’s the hypocrisy that the sale of nufc should be stopped whilst all these other deals go throughout without a murmur. The one thing this deal won’t be stopped on is human rights, it would put the premier league at odds with the policy of the U.K. government. What is blatantly happening here is human rights lawyers are using the high profile nature of this sale to gain publicity, as they know the Saudis buying stakes in other companies just doesn’t draw the same attention. You can’t blame them for this as this is their job, however what I strongly object to is the notion that we should sacrifice the chance of a lifetime for our city and club, If this was blocked these same people would move on to their next cause and wouldn’t give a s%#t about us. So whilst I acknowledge and understand the human rights aspect, ths hypocrisy expecting us to be line drawn in the sand with Saudis doesn’t wash with me and many others. Despite my dislike of the practices of this kind of regime, I have to admit to myself that I hope the sale goes through. Of course there's a strong element of hypocrisy and double standards there, but I don't think it's worse than those who turn a blind eye to the close commercial relationship and military alliance that we have with the Saudis, but who indulge in outrage when someone else's football team looks like profiting. However, I don't think we should tell ourselves that we can be an agent for change in that country by giving them a little lecture whilst at the same time taking their money. That feels like a piece of self-deceit. One thing I do genuinely believe, though I may be wrong, is that this kind of step by the Saudis represents a move, however slight, towards a closer cultural relationship with the West, and therefore ultimately to other reforms, which I think have already begun in that country, albeit on a modest scale. Given the chaos that's resulted in that part of the world when other countries have sought to reform, it's perhaps better that change is slow and incremental, to avoid a messy revolution that end up making the situation worse. Frankly, I don't think the world can afford to have an Ayatollah taking charge there. I think you’re last paragraph there raises a very interesting point. Essentially is purchase just part of a broader ‘sportswashing’ policy, or is it part of a gradual cultural change within SA? Actually what Delaney and Neville went back and forth with on Twitter yesterday. Depending on your viewpoint you could argue either way, but there’s probably not really going to be an answer for another 10 years or so. A lot of fans (me included I suspect) probably wouldn’t care if they brought success and investment to the club/region, but an interesting point none the less.

It was known but he and his pal made out that they were definitely going to pay it back. Now it seems that may not be the case.

Amanda Staveley, the Reuben brothers and PIF.

I’m not sure many, if any, have actually refunded yet, but I believe some/most have put out communication as to the fact refunds will given if/when games are voided or played BCD. Obviously we’re not doing communication at the minute.

Fixed Well, yeah. There is that. Aaaaaaand that's bollocks. Abysmal ffs. Utterly ludicrous. I honestly think some of the latter day fans really don't know the true meaning of abysmal, as far a footballers go. Tbf they'll have seen Emmanuel Riviere playing up front on his own, so they should had a good base to work with...

My 11/1 on Peterborough to be League One top scorers looks like it’ll be getting voided :rant:

Can’t see there being a Europa League in 20/21 tbh.

8th and fucked.

The goal he scored at SJP, was one of the best i've seen live by an opposition player. Edit: a quick check tells me this was the game Staveley was at. She must have thought it was a cracking strike too...

The overwhelming majority of fans don't rate him, they just rile against the notion that he's some complete incompetent, not fit to manage Blyth etc. etc He's an average lower-half PL/championship manager, who was fortunate to get his current role, but has done a fair to middling job whilst in it. Tbh, I hope he does get peddled so we can move from this whole discussion.

I don't think I'd i'd have an overly strong opinion either way. I did get a couple of the free ones that have been used by various different mates, rather than the same ones, so I don't think they would be getting renewed if that was an option. To be honest, it's kind of hard to make a case for people being rewarded for taking up something that was free, ahead of people who could potentially have spent fortunes following the team in the past.

And MA did not own Rangers lock, stock and barrel.

been thinking about this recently, are all teams fanbases as split between daft arsehole cunts and normal, sensible people? we seem to have soooooooo many dickheads like, it's untrue remember years back going home and away they seemed very much the minority to me then I really don't understand the notion that our fanbase is somehow different, worse (or better for that matter) than other teams. Football fans are football fans. Yes, social demographics for certain areas play a part in 'differences', but the larger the fanbase, the less differences they are. It was forever an argument under Ashley (hopefully one we can finally move on from), 'Team X's fans wouldn't stand for this'. When in reality Team X's fans would have behaved exactly the same.

If the prince running Sheff Utd was part of the group then I think it would be a non starter. Don't think he is (sure it's his own money) and as such Staveley and our proposed future chairman as you said will have known all the possible issues and have the responses prepared. You don't pay £17 million non-refundable deposit unless they are pretty sure they have everything covered. Thing is though, they can have all the confidence in the world but it'll count for nothing if the PL interpret things differently. If that happens, hopefully it'd be up for debate and discussion. You'd think that if this was going to be a problem there'd be some internal rank-pulling within the Saudi establishment, and the Sheff Utd guy would be relinquishing his role.

I'm surprised Adrian Durham hasn't said the Saudis should be investing the money into the NHS instead. I think read somewhere that they will be making a sizeable donation when the deal is announced. Clever really, as even Amnesty can’t shit on the gesture given what’s going on. "Healthwashing"

That’s true. Although they do constantly claim to be being “guided by the science”. That’s until they decide it’s costing too much presumably.

Well, they more or less said it stays in place (to varying degrees) until there’s a vaccine sorted, which they estimated at a year+. Having said that, you’ve basically got every lab rat in the world working on it, so you’d hope it would be sooner.

This is the problem really. Beacuse we all want this to go through so desperately, it feels like anything that could be a threat to it, is a direct attack upon us/the club. In reality it's not, it's an attack on Saudi and the people running the regime, but because of that fear of the deal being scuppered, people don't see that.