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The combination of the carver disaster, wonga shirt mess up, Ashley no longer attending any games and now three senior members of staff leaving must surly mean that he has taking his eye off the ball because he is preparing to sell up

 

I think that's wishful thinking tbqh.

 

Ashley doesn't give a fuck about even his most senior personnel in his main business. These knobs leaving NUFC are not even collateral damage.

 

With any luck he'll fuck Liar off too and bring in a whole new regime with a different mandate. Highly doubtful though.

 

That's not entirely true. A lot of the senior bods in his emporium of tat have been there for a long time and are trusted friends to MA. He very much cares about who is running SD

 

A helluva lot of them have been flung by the wayside too.

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Highlights exactly how much he sees NUFC as a business - surrounds himself with proven finance-minded people he knows and trusts at board level and consistently hires complete duds to run the football side.

 

Absolute cunt!

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Highlights exactly how much he sees NUFC as a business - surrounds himself with proven finance-minded people he knows and trusts at board level and consistently hires complete duds to run the football side.

 

Absolute c***!

 

The duds are cheap.

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Highlights exactly how much he sees NUFC as a business - surrounds himself with proven finance-minded people he knows and trusts at board level and consistently hires complete duds to run the football side.

 

Absolute c***!

 

The duds are cheap.

 

and don't make a fuss because they are punching way above their weight

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http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-united-owner-mike-ashley-9308049

 

relaxation of Financial Fair Play and Mike Ashley's move into luxury property - along with Newcastle's woes - are intriguing developments

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JS58055837-1.jpgMark Runnacles/Getty Images

Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley

They were still hawking tickets on Thursday, pointing out on Twitter that you could still secure your seat for arguably the richest and potentially one of the most pivotal matches in Newcastle United’s post-war history.

 

Some educated analysts have pitched the cost of relegation at £70million but the effects of Newcastle going down would be more profound. Never mind Tim Krul or Moussa Sissoko leaving, jobs within the club could go – and the infrastructure of an organisation where on-the-ground staff members working long hours feel they are constantly embattled needs anything but pruning back.

 

Just as worrying is what is happening to the people whose enthusiasm and faith used to underpin the whole endeavour. You can feel frustration crackling just under the surface, and the commitment and fight illustrated by Sunderland on Wednesday serves only to frustrate Newcastle fans more. Something frightening is happening out there.

 

At one point United used to point to the crowds and say it contradicted some of the horror stories spun in these pages, social media and the more chest-thumping fan publications. But now they can’t fill the ground for a game with so much at stake – what does that say?

 

 

You hear about them everywhere these days. At one point those taking screen shots of their Direct Debit cancellation and posting them on Twitter might have constituted a few of the louder voices among a pretty militant faction of the supporter base.

 

But on Wednesday, as the last few runners crossed the line in the dying mid-May sun at Whitley Bay’s Clive Cookson 10k road race, you could overhear a couple of middle-aged blokes opining over the fate of the club and confirming that they wouldn’t be back next year having cancelled their season tickets. No multi-media protestations, just more support melting away after seeing too much.

 

Perhaps Newcastle would have more success selling those tickets if the man who has constructed this sorry mess would take his seat. Ever since Alan Pardew departed, Mike Ashley has been absent from United games – and he isn’t about to start turning up on Sunday either. The official line is that his presence, with feelings running high, might distract the players from the job in hand. But make no mistake, his own personal boycott of the club is as telling and intriguing.

 

The real question now is whether Ashley will ever be back. Developments over the last few months, with Newcastle proving a harder and more complicated proposition than anyone in their boardroom felt it would and Ashley’s move into property, might yet be a game changer.

 

Newcastle United fans protest against owner Mike Ashley

Newcastle United fans protest against owner Mike Ashley

It feels like we have been here before but could all the stars, finally, be aligning for Ashley to relinquish control?

 

A few things to consider. According to City sources, Ashley’s £200million acquisition of the Clearings in West London from John Lewis is the start of a move into a luxury property market in the capital which could reap rewards that might even out-strip those he has accrued from his retail business.

 

A quick example of this was when Ashley sold Sports Direct’s 32,500-square metre West End offices to the University of Westminster earlier this month. Told to seek £38million – a hopeful sum in itself – Michael Elliott and Savills eventually sold for £43million. That’s £5million recouped without getting tangled in the messy world of football.

 

When 62 flats have been built and sold in the Clearings, it’s estimated Ashley will have made £900million on his first serious foray into property. These kind of deals are only available to the mega-wealthy, the sort that will have licking their lips at the prospect of a Tory win in the General Election. Ashley is one of those who will look to divest.

 

Developments hundreds of miles away in Zurich may be just as important. For clubs of middling achievement but substantial potential, Financial Fair Play has been a significant hindrance to their chances of selling.

 

There has been no buyer for Everton, Aston Villa or even AC Milan, the first two – remember – looked at by Sheikh Mansour before he changed the face of Manchester City. FFP, which will be modified by Uefa to allow more substantial investment provided by a benefactor, has prevented a repeat of Mansour’s revelatory impact at the Etihad.

 

What this all adds up to is that those dreams of an oil-rich consortium buying out Newcastle, while not exactly realistic, might not be quite as fanciful as they once were.

 

Ashley has not been a motivated seller up until now but on Sunday, his £200million asset stands to lose £70million. A slice of his fortune is at stake and reliant on mercenary players locked in relationship of mutual antipathy with a public who feel nothing but loathing for him.

 

Relegation may not give him a reason to sell up but the inability to find a way to make football effectively work for him might. His reputation has taken another pounding in the last five months and it was interesting to see a YouGov survey recently that suggested Sports Direct’s brand value among football fans has dropped off a cliff of late. Their ‘Buzz Metric’ model – assessing whether someone has heard something positive or negative about a brand – put Sports Direct at -19 among football fans in April.

 

Only a major change of direction and significant alterations in policy could turn around his stewardship of Newcastle now but does he have the appetite? His absence since Pardew tells a story.

 

The league position illustrates that the model he constructed at Newcastle doesn’t work and on the surface, the conditions have never been better for him to sell up. Even if Sunday isn’t his last stand, his empty seat will be proof of the further erosion of his once cast-iron certainty that he could make football work for him.

 

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problem with that douglas article is while the theory might be right, and he might want out to concentrate on raping people for money over property instead, the issue will be there's simply no way he'll sell that club at a loss imo and no-one is giving him 250-300m for it either

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Guest Geordiesned

'No publicity is bad publicity!' what a crock of shit.

 

It's such a lazy cliche. One which Gerald Ratner would completely disagree with.

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The thing that Sports Direct has going for it is people don't think there are any alternatives, the amount of times I hear people saying "no where else to buy cheap football socks" etc so negative publicity doesn't have the same impact on Sports Direct

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problem with that douglas article is while the theory might be right, and he might want out to concentrate on raping people for money over property instead, the issue will be there's simply no way he'll sell that club at a loss imo and no-one is giving him 250-300m for it either

 

Exactly - he might shift focus away from football but he's not going to flush millions of pounds down the toilet. As the article says, there are clubs better placed than us that can't be sold at the moment.

 

I think the only way the club can be sold is if there is a sale price and the interest free loan is converted into a "normal loan" with the debt saddled on the club. Or some horrible clauses regarding advertising at al. Ashley's not going to lose a penny, out of spite.

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Not really.  Once we relegated, the club value would take a serious hit and this actually reduce his wealth already.  And, if we are further relegated, he would realize eventually he would get nothing in return from us and he would fire sale at a very low price.

 

in short, one relegation may not be enough, but two would do it.  Lets prepare for life in League One.

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problem with that douglas article is while the theory might be right, and he might want out to concentrate on raping people for money over property instead, the issue will be there's simply no way he'll sell that club at a loss imo and no-one is giving him 250-300m for it either

 

Exactly - he might shift focus away from football but he's not going to flush millions of pounds down the toilet. As the article says, there are clubs better placed than us that can't be sold at the moment.

 

I think the only way the club can be sold is if there is a sale price and the interest free loan is converted into a "normal loan" with the debt saddled on the club. Or some horrible clauses regarding advertising at al. Ashley's not going to lose a penny, out of spite.

 

is this a potential reason for building up stockpiles of cash within the club?  we had 34m in 2014 so lets assume that'll increase between now and the next results to june 2015 and we've got say 60m in the bank; could he be wanting to say to potential buyers pay 250m for the club but you'll have 60m cash in the bank when you buy it to spend on whatever you like?  he gets his money back, the buyers effectively get the club cheaper....

 

I don't know how these things work but it'd make more sense than him taking the cash out and having to take the tax hit maybe? :dontknow:

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I was reading this last night and shaking my head in disbelief every time I read LF. He's so far disconnected from the club he's just regurgitating cliché. "Be careful what you wish for?" Aye fuck off!

 

Some local "experts" doing a complete 180 on their earlier comments there like. I appreciate what they're saying nut it sounds a bit hollow after they've previously backed the ownership. Rob Lee though, love the guy!

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Not really.  Once we relegated, the club value would take a serious hit and this actually reduce his wealth already.  And, if we are further relegated, he would realize eventually he would get nothing in return from us and he would fire sale at a very low price.

 

in short, one relegation may not be enough, but two would do it.  Lets prepare for life in League One.

 

I don't agree - his wealth would only be effected as the value of an illiquid asset dropped, but since that money is already tied up there's no need to let the asset go. And if he splits the sale price and keeps the loan separate, then it would only be the sale price that would drop and the loan would continue to hang over our heads.

 

Conceivably, we could get relegated to a pub league and still have his 117 million debt (or whatever it is) attached to the club. I think he'd be more disinclined to sell. You're assuming he'll cut his losses at some point. I think the way he runs the club assures he will cut our cloth to wherever we are and then (continue to) stick two fingers up at the fans whatever league we are in.

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He's got that much money he really doesn't need to sell us until he gets bored. He could sell us for a massive loss and he wouldn't notice the difference other than it being a figure. Problem is that he'll simply not do that, if we go down I really do think he'll find a way of loaning us more money making us even less attractive to potential buyers.

 

Unless we go down another division or so I think we're stuck with him for the foreseeable future. It would take a major campaign to get the thick skinned, malicious git out of the club.

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I'm pretty convinced he had no intention of selling the club when we got relegated in 09. I see no reason why he would do it now.

 

 

Absolutely this, if he "puts the club up for sale" it's because he wants us off his back, that's all he did it for last time and it worked.

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