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Various: Mike Ashley in talks with Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan


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Am I the only one who thinks everyone is getting carried away? Nothing to suggest anything is close yet :lol:

 

Supporting this club would be impossible if you didn't let yourself dream at the slightest sign of hope.

yes but supporting this club also teaches the fact the light at the end of the tunnel is usually an oncoming train

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I'm a bit wary of consortiums or managed funds, which is what we seem to be dealing with here. As we know, despite the money coming into football, it's difficult to turn a profit, because the money tends to get eaten up through the competitive costs of transfer fees and salaries. If you don't join in, you go down.

 

Chelsea, PSG and Man City have owners who are prepared to stick their own money in, regardless of the odds at getting a return, just for the prestige that success brings. I can't see whoever is behind Ms Staveley being up for that. They seem to be investors in the true sense ie they'll want some kind of return for their money, or at least won't be continually prepared to write off losses. If they're not going to get the individual ego rub that success brings, what's in it for them?

 

It looks like it's going ahead, and perhaps they'll be in a position to take more financial risks than Ashley. But let's not forget that for every Sheikh Mansour or Abramovic, there's several other foreign owners who get disillusioned after a couple of seasons and stop writing the cheques.

 

Returns might not be about cold hard annual revenue profits though, as they can be capital. Buying a football club for £300m when it makes a £30m loss every year and investing £200m isn't a bad idea if in 5 years time due to the next inflated TV deal, better commercial deals, regular European football, greater brand values, etc etc, the club is now worth £800m and has a playing squad worth double what it was when taking over. There's also "synergies" to consider, with NUFC these past 10 years being a Sports Direct advert one prime example of how there is money to be made indirectly through owning a football club and utilizing it to favor your other interests.

 

The other possibility with many of these Arab, Russian and Chinese investors/oligarchs is that they just just want to move some of the vast sums of money they have out of their respective high risk/volatile countries (over the long term) and invest in "reliable" assets in stable developed economies that aren't going to depreciate anytime soon. Business, buildings and land are the obvious options, but they're saturated markets at the moment and I'd imagine these investors already have large investments in mansions and skyscrapers in major cities around the globe. Football and sports are a different option, yet if you were to look at valuations of football clubs over time it's going to be a consistent upwards trend, and that would appeal to these types of investors looking to stash their cash somewhere safer. That's before considering the degree of prestige and exclusivity that owning a PL football club brings, whether they're football fans, etc etc.

 

It doesn't necessarily have to be the case that they have nefarious intentions or want to milk NUFC immediately. Although that's obviously always going to be a risk.

 

To be quite honest, I genuinely don't care what their intentions would be providing they put competent and skilled people in charge of running the football club, which is Ashey's biggest failure imo. I'm sure many on here wouldn't care one bit about Ashley running NUFC to the benefit of Sports Direct if he had put in place both a David Dein or Daniel Levy type in the boardroom and a Rafa equivalent (or the next best we can attract) in the managers dugout from day one and supported them (as opposed to backing buffoons like Llambias, Kinnear, Jiminez, Wise, Pardew, Penfold, etc). Of course the issue is that someone like Ashley who intends to run NUFC like a circus act isn't generally going to be able to persuade a Dein/Levy to work for him, he'll inherently want/attract yes men desperate for a job, but then Ashley isn't a good standard to measure against. The point is that I'm sure it's possible to want to make a profit from a club like NUFC and still run it competently through employing the right people. You have to be a special kind of tool to want to make money from NUFC by running it in the worst possible way.

 

Excellent post :clap:

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I think the renaming of St James park is inevitable after take over.  I understand the meaning of it but I just don't think any new owner, whose aim is to put in money to make a name, give this up. I have prepared for the worst, and I would accept if the new owner did invest a large sum of money into our squad.

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I didn't really have a problem with the concept the first time they tried to rename it, but not getting any money for it is the only part of the situation I had a problem with, the name was also dreadful. If someone comes along with 50 million for the stadium name (obviously FFP loophole) that we can then spend on transfers it would be stupid to get so morally hung up on the SJP name, at the expense of that.

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A new stadium name will just be ignored by the supporters, it doesn't matter what some corporate institute wishes to call it. I couldn't GAF.

 

Also regarding investment.... I'm 40 now. When I was 15-20, I'd have wanted to win the league fairly. To see us out-compete these sovereign states. However now with half my life behind me and not a single sniff of a trophy, I'm starting to thing "fuck that" and I couldn't care less how we win something. Bring on the billions, if that's what it takes. Fuck everyone.

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The first thing that's made me really believe this might happen is the headlines today that Ashley "wants to remain in football" after the sale.

 

That just doesn't seem the kind of statement you make if you're not really intending to sell.

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The first thing that's made me really believe this might happen is the headlines today that Ashley "wants to remain in football" after the sale.

 

That just doesn't seem the kind of statement you make if you're not really intending to sell.

 

Reversely, he could stay in football by not selling... I’d be more confident if he said he had enough of football and will use the money to make another SD acquisition of some chain of stores.

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Commercial income needs to be increased and the fact that we made more 10 years ago is a joke, perhaps if we move away from loan sharks and Chinese money laundering betting companies it might be a good start but renaming the stadium is a no go for me

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Not for me, some things shouldn't be bought. There's so little left in football that's not tainted by the stench of money that we should fight for it.

Everything is pretty much tainted already Dave to be honest.

 

If the speculation is true And we are planning to spend these crazy sums renaming the stadium would allow us some breathing room where FFP is concerned.

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Not for me, some things shouldn't be bought. There's so little left in football that's not tainted by the stench of money that we should fight for it.

Everything is pretty much tainted already Dave to be honest.

 

If the speculation is true And we are planning to spend these crazy sums renaming the stadium would allow us some breathing room where FFP is concerned.

 

Yup.

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I think we've got to be pragmatic, commercial revenue has been going down continually under Ashley. We need to drive that up to make us less dependent on the owners pumping money in, which has got to be a good thing long term.

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Renaming the stadium again would be terrible, don't give a s*** if they've got loads of money or what.

Even Barcelona, who for years opposed sponsorship on their shirts, had to accept sponsorship money to remain competitive. NUFC are no different as long as it isn’t something like Wonga Dome I haven’t got a problem?

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Not for me, some things shouldn't be bought. There's so little left in football that's not tainted by the stench of money that we should fight for it.

Everything is pretty much tainted already Dave to be honest.

 

If the speculation is true And we are planning to spend these crazy sums renaming the stadium would allow us some breathing room where FFP is concerned.

 

Apart from everything that isn't, like our current stadium name. ???

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Not for me, some things shouldn't be bought. There's so little left in football that's not tainted by the stench of money that we should fight for it.

Everything is pretty much tainted already Dave to be honest.

 

If the speculation is true And we are planning to spend these crazy sums renaming the stadium would allow us some breathing room where FFP is concerned.

 

Apart from everything that isn't, like our current stadium name. ???

It’s already been renamed once mind.

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