TheBrownBottle

Man City don’t have notably higher ticket prices than NUFC - it’s the corporate that shifts the dial, doubling their income relative to ours. If we remain sat at sub-£40m match day income, then we can’t compete. We won’t be able to make up the £100m difference with Spurs and Arsenal via commercial revenues - and theirs are already far higher than ours. It is true that we won’t ever be able to match ticket prices to the London clubs - but a new ground with hugely expanded corporate would have been the solution. Abramovich used to flog corporate boxes at Chelsea for a million per season. Concerts etc are basically meaningless, mind. I’ve seen plenty of comments re what the SOS gets to host - and hosting Beyoncé and Springsteen hasn’t made much of a dent in Sunderland’s commercial income. The ground can only take in pretty much the same as a regular fixture; only you now have to give a sizeable chunk to the performer. A single league cup home match would bring in more cash.

Like any reasonable person, I fucking despise this shite And at the same time - yeah, to have any chance of competing this is what you need Even if it does make me just want to give up on ‘the people’s game’ entirely

The club has been valued at £1bn. The Sela deal wasn’t exactly a long way above market value; neither was the adidas deal. Football clubs values are also not linked to income in any real sense - yield isn’t a key factor in sale value. Chelsea ran up consistent losses. I also don’t think we’re likely to break into the top six in terms of income at this point, though this is because I see little evidence that what would be needed to give us a chance of doing so is going to happen. We’re moving far too slow, and doing far too little. It would not take multiple billions of direct investment without return to do so.

Yes, the purchase price included yhe £140m loan - meaning they didn’t give Ashley £305m + £140m. Ashley wasn’t aware of the 90 day payoff for the Barclays loan upon change of ownership.

Abramovich’s forced sale of Chelsea was for more than all the money he’d spent buying and investing. If Man City was sold tomorrow, it would reap a serious profit. Neither of those clubs were anything like what they are today before vastly wealthy owners poured money in. Everton’s sugar daddy didn’t have anything like that wealth, and made some absolute howlers. NUFC would turn a profit currently - excluding the £1bn that they paid to Qatar, which was also part of regional cold war denouement. There is nothing to suggest that the ‘big six’ is a natural block - that six is a limit to the number of clubs that can enter. It was the ‘big five’ when I was a kid - and that included Everton (Man City and Chelsea were nowhere). Later there was a ‘big four’. There absolutely is a profit available in taking Newcastle up in standing - and Newcastle’s ceiling is higher than Everton’s, ultimately (and they are a big club). But there is nothing in any of PIF’s investments outside of KSA which suggests that they do vanity projects outside of the country. Everything else is counting every penny - which is why the ‘process’ (every signing etc requiring Byzantine processes to get approval from PIF) is so slow.

They didn’t pay the £140m loan - that was in the sale price. The £1bn comes from paying Qatar for pirating BeIN. Purchasing price for the club isn’t ‘investment’. Unless Mike Ashley ‘invested’ £250m in NUFC through purchasing and loans - but I don’t remember that ever being stated? Capital equity is the sole investment so far.

Everything is pointing in that direction at the moment

They’re not going to stump up for it

Agreed - and actions speak much louder than words. So far, zilch. We've spent over half a billion on transfers tbf - but that doesn't mean half a billlion has been invested.

Man City’s facilities cost £200m. Our tart up of the current facilities would likely be 1%. It is one solution to the question.

It’s worth thinking about that we didn’t actually lodge any demand for punishment - we could have sat passively and waited for judgment. I’m not at all convinced that PIF are playing 4D chess

Because we’re complying with the rules - and they’ve been accused of some serious breaches? Those running PIF would need to be dumber than a bag of bricks if they bought the club completely unaware of the rules and regs; and the Man City breaches were already public at that point

European bans and transfer sanctions can happen too - but you’re right, points deductions aren’t on the board.

Related party transactions used to have to be declared by the clubs in their accounts (Man City didn’t declare Etihad, for example). The rule change introduced for us was that they have to be signed off by the PL before agreement is finalised. Man City weren’t even going after this change - they’re going after the change from earlier this year, which changed the burden of proof from the PL to the clubs themselves - so Man City would now have to prove that the deals were ‘FMV’ or face potential sanctions, rather than the PL simply blocking. There’s nothing to suggest that rule book is about to be overturned.

We already can do that; it is the value of the sponsorships that cause the issue. UEFA’s rules re FMV also cause a problem, too - the PL could remove all the shackles and the clubs would still need to abide by UEFA’s rules

It does hamper us. But it doesn’t mean ‘all bets are off’.

Because they’re going after the associated party rules, not FMV - there were already rules in place re FMV. A lot seem to be assuming that a Man City victory means that we can suddenly get sponsorships at a vastly inflated level. We won’t be able to do that.

It’s a rubber bullet It would take the rules back to the way that they were in Oct ‘21 - there would still be clear limitations re sponsorship deals. PIF aren’t suddenly going to be able to have one of their companies become the official NUFC bog seat providers for £100m per season

Didn’t you say that if the new sponsors weren’t in place by the end of the previous window that you’d also be asking questions?

It isn’t the magic bullet that most seem to be assuming it is. ‘Fair market value’ rules for sponsorship will remain in place

They could have lined up sponsors two or three years ago, and replaced them with bigger deals next summer if the Man City case comes off. There was nothing stopping them doing this - everyone seems to be clinging on to the idea that something is holding them back. What use would new sponsorship be now that the summer window has closed?

Newcastle are the perfect investment - we’ve already trebled in value. Much higher risk to investment would have been buying one of the big clubs. I don’t think this looks anything like a vanity project at the moment - so far this looks like an investment; there is a clear reluctance to throw real money around, and three years is a long time. I’ll come back to them until the evidence changes - where are the sponsors? Where is the training ground? Where is the academy? Where is the plans for a super stadium? To date, we’ve seen a level of investment which pretty much any new owner of a PL club with potential would have made. There’s nothing so far to suggest vanity purchase / sportswashing.

The lack of information has been an ongoing issue for some time, pretty much since the takeover. I don’t count Ghodoussi or Reuben talking shite on Twitter. Actual communication with the support re actual plans and where the club is going - again, ‘we’re going to be number 1’ is meaningless. The closest we’ve had was a pissed-up Staveley after the League Cup final making some ill-advised claims.

You don’t need to state a location to talk about plans

I literally don't give a shite about any of the teams who usually win it winning it. Not even Chelsea, who's wanker bone fides comfortably pre-date the Abramovich and Harding eras (i.e. when they'd won fewer trophies than West Ham)