Unbelievable Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 I find it hard to fathom anybody could still be so naive as to believe his reason for buying the club was just to have a bit of fun. As long as he doesn't invest significantly in the footballing side of the business, which it doesn't look like he will, the club does stand to make a significant profit with the added TV revenue (20 million per season is not an unreasonable estimate). A profit making advertisement vehicle in the Premiership, on which he will get at least his money back when he eventually sells. What's not to like? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bimpy474 Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 He bought us to try to get his shop chain into Asia, that's just imo like. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LRD Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 He bought us to try to get his shop chain into Asia, that's just imo like. Think he's targeting Europe more than anything. Good luck trying to sell his wares with those cheap replicas going around in Bangkok. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The College Dropout Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 Yep. Running on the bones risks relegation. He'll aim to lower the debt in hopes it boosts the sale chances and make it more attractive to investors. Any business that runs on limited investment will struggle to keep turning tidy profits. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 I am convinced he just wants as much money back from the club as he can get. He is taking far too long though over doing it, probably his revenge for the abuse. He is draining the passion and life from this great institution by his appointments and policies and I for one cannot wait to see the back of him. I would rather we were in a lower league without Ashley, playing with 11 men from these isles rather than have to follow the likes of his only 'signing' Remy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeDubbleYoo Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 Mike Ashley seems fairly unlikely to 'make' any money from owning us TBH, unless a money-crazed buyer pops up. He's already many millions down. Obviously he has benefited in other ways, the promotion of SD etc. As Roger says, you would be silly to invest a football club if your main objective was to make money. It's incredibly expensive, the return on investment is hard to predict, there are much better ways to invest the amount of money Mike Ashley had. From what we've heard the main objective was to promote SD and in that it's been very successful. I guess so, but then again, what does £200m+ in marketing buy you? Sponsorship of the Premier League? Set up your own TV channel? Billboard advertising at every ground in the country? I still think Mike Ashley's original motivation was just to fulfill an ambition of owning a club, have some fun on the side, and then also to promote his goods overseas. Problem is that everything went to s*** so quickly. .....and whose fault was that.. Mainly his obviously, doesn't change the effect though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
UV Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 I don't care what he said to Hall to persuade him to sell quickly when others were sniffing around, it's pretty obvious he just bought the club to quickly flip for a profit. TV revenues were going up £10m that year and buyers were snapping up clubs left right and centre. He thought that by superficially tarting up the club a bit by claiming to have sorted out its finances, putting in place a great new continental DoF structure and a talismanic manager, enthusing the supporters, he'd be able to sell it off for a decent profit no bother. The person he put in charge of the club was a lawyer who specialises in buying and selling large companies ffs. Llambias even admitted he was trying to sell the club before any trouble, within months of buying it. He also made a shocking claim in a meeting with fans last month that Keegan’s second coming as Newcastle manager in 2008 came about because he was the preferred choice of potential Arab buyers. He revealed: “Mike (Ashley) was selling to the Arabs and they wanted Kevin Keegan. “The Arabs wanted him, the fans wanted him — perfect!” Unfortunately for him and us the financial crash put paid to that plan though, so he has had to settle for plan B since then which is to run the club like his other brand acquisitions, ie for the sole benefit of his baby Sports Direct. Having moved onto plan B though, if he can continue to run the club at a break even level or even at a profit while getting free advertising and revenue for selling club branded merchandise through Sports Direct (how much of that does the club see I wonder?), why should he sell? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mofo Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 Any chance we could change the topic title to "Mike Ashley is a wanker" even just for a day to make me feel better?? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewJerseyMag Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 Feels like the Seymour/Westwood era. At least the ground looks good, with the exception of the tacky SD s**t. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exiled in Texas Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 Ashley is a business man - not a fan. He makes his decisions looking at the balance sheet not the pitch, so he has a different focus to the fans. He wants to make money (either for NUFC or for SD) and how he does that does not necessarily mean that the quality of the product on the field has to be good. If Ashley thinks that SD is getting value from their brand exposure through NUFC, then he is probably content with the arrangement. The difference is that fans are only interested in the product put forth on the field, and we don't value the SD advertising (especially as it doesn;t show up on the balance sheet at NUFC). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoveItIfWeBeatU Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 http://www.thejournal.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/tarnishing-newcastle-uniteds-reputation-sad-5821252 The tarnishing of Newcastle United's reputation is a sad and sorry state of affairs 31 Aug 2013 08:21 Newcastle United are a mere 72 hours away from the ignominy of living down to Tyneside’s subterranean expectations of their summer business. To only bring in one loan signing in a summer where football is awash with new-found TV riches is some achievement, but they are on the brink of managing it. Perhaps Joe Kinnear can add it to that gold-plated CV of his. There is a bigger narrative that is building steam here, though: one that won’t even be halted by desperate, last-ditch business before Monday’s late-night deadline. This has been the summer when the steady and unmistakable tarnishing of Newcastle United’s reputation has begun to build a toxic momentum. That is not a sentence that anyone would write lightly. There is so much about the club that swells the breast with pride: from the superb work of their Foundation to the stoic dedication of the many club employees who do their best to uphold the finest traditions of Tyneside’s most storied institutions. Take, for example, the way Morecambe officials talked about Newcastle on Wednesday night. In the hushed shadow of the stands at Globe Park it was possible to hear Shrimps employees hailing the club as a “class act”. Little things like supplying a signed shirt for a charity auction might not find their way on to a balance sheet but they ensure the club is in surplus with many in the game. What a shame that the owner and his anointed director of football have singularly failed to live up to the standards set by those who see the club’s crest as standing for something more than a meal ticket back into the game or a vehicle for their already successful sportswear business. What a shame that neither man appears to grasp the responsibilities they have in their privileged positions or understand that they are accountable to the thousands who will file through the gates this afternoon. The mistakes this summer have been legion, but let’s begin with the pub politics that saw Kinnear get the job in the first place. On a sunny Saturday in June, the owner summoned Derek Llambias and Graham Carr to the Orange Tree pub in Totteridge to be told about Kinnear’s appointment over a pint. This is no way to run a used car lot, never mind a cherished football club that has the emotional and financial investment of thousands in the North East. Where was the due diligence of employing someone with the skills for the job? Where was the studious and careful sifting through the candidates who would no doubt have jumped at the chance to take on such a prestigious role? Drowned at the bottom of a pint pot, it seems. To do all of this hundreds of miles from the city that has St James’ Park deep in its bosom was contemptuous. What happened next was utterly embarrassing. Every businessman in England would grasp that the way Kinnear was approached and then appointed was a recipe for calamity. There are plenty of gifted candidates who would have done the job. Yet Ashley proceeded and didn’t even blink when Kinnear took to the airwaves – ahead of an official club announcement, of course – and proceeded to billow nonsense for 48 hours. At one point he even seemed to suggest he had “more intelligence” than Newcastle’s fans. It was outrageous. The club’s reputation – which had been repaired by the thought that was put into their strategy for the 2011/12 season – felt tarnished by what transpired. For Kinnear it was “water off a duck’s a***”, to use the mangled idiom he uttered in this infamous Talksport interview. Not so for Derek Llambias who, having felt his position was rendered untenable by Kinnear’s appointment, resigned on a point of principle. Carr was talked out of doing the same. Ashley, presumably, felt this was yet another storm of controversy to be weathered. He will be bolstered by the dispatch that despite all of the criticism, the cursing and the cussing the launch of the new strip – adorned with the name of pay-day lending firm Wonga – has been the most successful for three years. What he might not understand is that discontent and disgust has begun to seep into the bone marrow of this city. The people are still proud of Newcastle United – of course they are, hence the shirt sales – but to a man they are not proud of Mike Ashley’s Newcastle United. They cringe when Kinnear misleads. Some local businesses wonder whether they really want to invite clients to watch a team that is owned by a man who plays fast and loose with the devotion of his public. Ashley will be prepared for the criticism on Monday night. If Cabaye goes and there is no replacement, the fury will build. The questions surrounding Kinnear will rise to a crescendo. What will he do? Very little, apart from tell Alan Pardew to get on with it until January when alternatives will be sourced. In the meantime, loan signings are back on the agenda in a move that feels very much like the kind of short-termism the club had talked of burying very recently. They asked for Darren Bent on loan and Demba Ba too, both the footballing equivalent of applying a plaster to a flesh wound. Make do and mend: hardly a strategy to reclaim that lost momentum. It is understood that Kinnear is bemused by the vitriol coming his way. He doesn’t see Newcastle’s current problems as his fault. Fair point, Joe. You haven’t signed any players yet either, though. We were not fooled by the pictures of you smiling next to Loic Remy after a deal that was nearly done in January was finally brokered. So far Newcastle have collected broken promises at the rate of knots, while not even coming close to adding new signings. A judgement is coming his way on Tuesday. Even if Ashley doesn’t hold him to account, the rest of us will. Perhaps the verdict is already in. A couple of weeks ago, a Newcastle supporter called Adam Clery wrote a piece on supporting the club in the Mike Ashley era for the Sabotage Times which must have been difficult to piece together. “This is Newcastle United as it exists under Mike Ashley,” it read. “You either accept things won’t be run they way you want them to be and consign yourself to going along with the sell-to-buy, just-do-enough mantra, or you spend your entire time wasting your energy being angry.” Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fenham Mag Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 About time the press speak up. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanSkÃrare Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 Well in Douglas. Now for Pardew as well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 About time the press speak up. It's an excellent piece. Funny how nobody was willing to put their name to it though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fenham Mag Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/reporters-sans-frontic3a8res-reporters-without-borders-press-freedom-map.jpg Can someone edit this to highlight Newcastle in red. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wullie Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 The new strip launch is the most successful in three years? We've got some of the thickest fans in football. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fenham Mag Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 The new strip launch is the most successful in three years? We've got some of the thickest fans in football. Absolute morons. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
EthiGeordie Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 Ashley admire Wneger and publicly stated he wants to copy what he does. No surprise Arsenal and Newcastle are spend 0 this summer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bimpy474 Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 The new strip launch is the most successful in three years? We've got some of the thickest fans in football. They bought them with Wonga loans. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wallace Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 It concerns me when the press are starting to be as outspoken as this because it makes me think that things are even worse than we are aware of because they will undoubtedly know more of what is going on behind the scenes than we do. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlin Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 Its a great article, but nothing we don't already know. Unfortunately, the only thing which will bother Ashley is a major and sustained boycott of the club and its merchandise. As many fans have nothing else in their lives, this is sadly not going to happen, but there is NO way I would support this regime. As Wullie says, we must have some of the thickest fans in the game to keep buying shirts after the treatment they receive from the owner and his acolytes - you can almost hear Ashley sniggering all the way down the M1. I bet the Journal will get a testy phone call from Sports Direct, asking who wrote it - it was right on the mark and we can only hope that a buyer for the club arrives sooner rather than later because more windows like this will happen if not. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeDubbleYoo Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 Got to say its a bit harsh to hammer fans for buying kits and going to the game. We might get all superior on here about how the club is being run and all that, but I find it hard to criticise people who want to show their support and wear their colours. At the end of the day, we're all fans and that's what fans do. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dokko Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 Was hoping to pick up the virgin top for a tenner, seems £25 is the price, obviously still popular due to wonga, however I'm surprised at this being the Bassett selling in x amount of years. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Phil K Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 The new strip launch is the most successful in three years? We've got some of the thickest fans in football. They bought them with Wonga loans. At least you never see full kit Newcastle fans. As for most successful ? Ive seen very few. Normally see loads Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bimpy474 Posted August 31, 2013 Share Posted August 31, 2013 Was hoping to pick up the virgin top for a tenner, seems £25 is the price, obviously still popular due to wonga, however I'm surprised at this being the Bassett selling in x amount of years. Long sleeve virgin top (home) £14.99 if you want to know the info. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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