PIF and RB Sports & Media

[Tiresias]

I imagine we haven't pushed boundaries on things because the loopholes will shortly get closed and more punative rules may be brought in. I imagine, frustrating as it is, they aren't actually in a huge rush for immediate 'success' and preferred to get the revenue up, get the training facilities up, improve the team bit by bit and if it takes a long time fine. Chasing winning the league immediately would be fun but I think the 4th season was further ahead of schedule than some think. 

 

I imagine gordon, isak or bruno will be sold in the summer to fund 2 or 3 more players in. It will hurt but that will have to be how we do it for a while. 

[TRon]

2 hours ago, RobsonsWonderland said:

Basically nobody knows what's going on behind closed doors in our boardroom, the court case or the premier league yet we are all becoming experts on things people have no previous knowledge on.

 

So for my what ifs...

 

What if the club could spend 70 million on players this summer but were waiting to find out if the court case went in our favour and we were able to spend 200 million this winter?

What if we could announce a legit sponsorship with a company for 50 million but again if the court case went in our favour we could get a related party deal over the line for 200 million.

 

We don't even have cryptic bread posts from the football lawyer to give us a hint.

 

We just have to ride it out and see what happens next.

 

 

 

 

This is probably a good take on it.

[TBG]

We need to install one of these as both a revenue stream and a way of seeing what the board actually do.

 

 

 

 

 

[et tu brute]

2 hours ago, RobsonsWonderland said:

Basically nobody knows what's going on behind closed doors in our boardroom, the court case or the premier league yet we are all becoming experts on things people have no previous knowledge on.

 

So for my what ifs...

 

What if the club could spend 70 million on players this summer but were waiting to find out if the court case went in our favour and we were able to spend 200 million this winter?

What if we could announce a legit sponsorship with a company for 50 million but again if the court case went in our favour we could get a related party deal over the line for 200 million.

 

We don't even have cryptic bread posts from the football lawyer to give us a hint.

 

We just have to ride it out and see what happens next.

 

 

 

It's getting embarrassing the amount of assumptions being made on here, when nobody has a clue what is actually happening 

[loki679]

Jury's out until they actually follow through on their words and do something.  Talk is cheap.....

[Unbelievable]

19 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

I won’t preemptively blame the cartel without evidence. The loan loophole from Saudi has been open this entire time. Never exploited it.  

 

Something tells me you don’t understand the interest free owner loans excluded from PSR situation. It’s not a loophole we could have exploited.

[54]

Personally, and I understand I may be in the minority here, i'd rather us not do things like exploiting loopholes like the loans from Saudi thing, and would much rather us play things by the book like we currently are, and have a slow build, even if it takes another 5 years before we get any real success. I don't need us to win a trophy right now, or get Champions League right now, so long as we're progressing as a club. Which, despite the blip in the summer we most definitely are.  

[SUPERTOON]

2 minutes ago, 54 said:

Personally, and I understand I may be in the minority here, i'd rather us not do things like exploiting loopholes like the loans from Saudi thing, and would much rather us play things by the book like we currently are, and have a slow build, even if it takes another 5 years before we get any real success. I don't need us to win a trophy right now, or get Champions League right now, so long as we're progressing as a club. Which, despite the blip in the summer we most definitely are.  

I get that way of thinking, but with the rules the way they are right now, the gap between ourselves and the big 6 will at best stay as it is. I genuinely don’t think we can close the gap enough with the way things are at the moment.

[r0cafella]

2 minutes ago, 54 said:

Personally, and I understand I may be in the minority here, i'd rather us not do things like exploiting loopholes like the loans from Saudi thing, and would much rather us play things by the book like we currently are, and have a slow build, even if it takes another 5 years before we get any real success. I don't need us to win a trophy right now, or get Champions League right now, so long as we're progressing as a club. Which, despite the blip in the summer we most definitely are.  

On a sentimental level I agree, realistically though I don't. In order to bridge the gap but us than those clubs with more revenue we have to grow faster than them. A slow build just leads to us falling further and further behind. It's why champions league is important for us we simply need more revenue streams so we can progress if not stagnating / regression is our future. 

 

We felt that injection of investment at the start but now it's wearing off as we've got close to our ffp allowance. 

[r0cafella]

1 minute ago, SUPERTOON said:

I get that way of thinking, but with the rules the way they are right now, the gap between ourselves and the big 6 will at best stay as it is. I genuinely don’t think we can close the gap enough with the way things are at the moment.

Because we can't and that's what the rules have been designed to do. It's why a new stadium is so important. 

[The College Dropout]

2 hours ago, Unbelievable said:

Something tells me you don’t understand the interest free owner loans excluded from PSR situation. It’s not a loophole we could have exploited.

I’m not talking about the financial loans. I’m talking about player loans. 
 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67490620.amp

 

1 hour ago, 54 said:

Personally, and I understand I may be in the minority here, i'd rather us not do things like exploiting loopholes like the loans from Saudi thing, and would much rather us play things by the book like we currently are, and have a slow build, even if it takes another 5 years before we get any real success. I don't need us to win a trophy right now, or get Champions League right now, so long as we're progressing as a club. Which, despite the blip in the summer we most definitely are.  

what does that look like to you in real terms?

 

Atm we aren’t pursuing a slow build. We are looking for short term success by keeping all of our players in prime or past prime years. Tying some of them down to long term contracts. Pursuing £60m CBs is not a slow build.  

 

A slow build To me is a focus on youth and undervalued players. Selling our star players consistently at peak value. Having a pipeline of quality players to keep and sell, comfortable within PSR, increasing revenues with a stadium on the way.  
 

And it may take years to get the transfer approach working to the level we need. And the academy will take many years. In that time we could finish anywhere from 5-10th imo. I’m happy with that. Unless the rules change, I don’t see how our current approach is going to work (Barnes, Tonali, Guehi, Elanga, MGW, Olise). 

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 09:45 by The College Dropout

[The College Dropout]

18 hours ago, Tiresias said:

I imagine we haven't pushed boundaries on things because the loopholes will shortly get closed and more punative rules may be brought in. I imagine, frustrating as it is, they aren't actually in a huge rush for immediate 'success' and preferred to get the revenue up, get the training facilities up, improve the team bit by bit and if it takes a long time fine. Chasing winning the league immediately would be fun but I think the 4th season was further ahead of schedule than some think. 

 

I imagine gordon, isak or bruno will be sold in the summer to fund 2 or 3 more players in. It will hurt but that will have to be how we do it for a while. 

This doesn’t seem likely as our aim is to finish in Europe this season as it was last season.  
 

You don’t sign Tonali for £60m if you’re not looking for short term success.  
 

IMO getting Ruben Neves on loan could’ve been the difference between finishing 6th or 7th and qualifying for Europe.  Which may have been the difference between Tosin choosing us over Chelsea. Then having money for a RW. These are all ifs but the margins in football are so slim. If you have opportunities you take them.  Aggression wins.  

[Keegans Export]

2 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

This doesn’t seem likely as our aim is to finish in Europe this season as it was last season.  
 

You don’t sign Tonali for £60m if you’re not looking for short term success.  
 

IMO getting Ruben Neves on loan could’ve been the difference between finishing 6th or 7th and qualifying for Europe.  Which may have been the difference between Tosin choosing us over Chelsea. Then having money for a RW. These are all ifs but the margins in football are so slim. If you have opportunities you take them.  Aggression wins.  

Numerous other PL clubs would agree, judging by how desperate they were to plug that "loophole"

 

Obviously it didn't pass in the end but there was clearly concern amongst some of our rivals. 

 

 

Edited Friday at 12:29 by Keegans Export

[54]

2 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

This doesn’t seem likely as our aim is to finish in Europe this season as it was last season.  
 

You don’t sign Tonali for £60m if you’re not looking for short term success.  
 

IMO getting Ruben Neves on loan could’ve been the difference between finishing 6th or 7th and qualifying for Europe.  Which may have been the difference between Tosin choosing us over Chelsea. Then having money for a RW. These are all ifs but the margins in football are so slim. If you have opportunities you take them.  Aggression wins.  

To me, its literally comes down to a very simple question.

 

Are the people behind the scenes looking to improve the club in every aspect they can, yes or no? That answer is undoubtably yes to me, So therefore i'm happy.

 

Could there be things we could have done differently that may have had a more positive outcome in the here and now, absolutely, could we have tried different techniques to the way the club is structured, sure, but that is just conjecture and we have no way to know whether it'd go one way or another, and besides every club could say the exact same thing, its not just unique to us. So it comes down to that simple question, and simple minded as that may seem, as a fan, thats all that matters. At least to me anyway. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

17 minutes ago, 54 said:

To me, its literally comes down to a very simple question.

 

Are the people behind the scenes looking to improve the club in every aspect they can, yes or no? That answer is undoubtably yes to me, So therefore i'm happy.

 

Could there be things we could have done differently that may have had a more positive outcome in the here and now, absolutely, could we have tried different techniques to the way the club is structured, sure, but that is just conjecture and we have no way to know whether it'd go one way or another, and besides every club could say the exact same thing, its not just unique to us. So it comes down to that simple question, and simple minded as that may seem, as a fan, thats all that matters. At least to me anyway. 

Absolutely, great post. 

[PauloGeordio]

20 minutes ago, 54 said:

To me, its literally comes down to a very simple question.

 

Are the people behind the scenes looking to improve the club in every aspect they can, yes or no? That answer is undoubtably yes to me, So therefore i'm happy.

 

Could there be things we could have done differently that may have had a more positive outcome in the here and now, absolutely, could we have tried different techniques to the way the club is structured, sure, but that is just conjecture and we have no way to know whether it'd go one way or another, and besides every club could say the exact same thing, its not just unique to us. So it comes down to that simple question, and simple minded as that may seem, as a fan, thats all that matters. At least to me anyway. 

We are making steady progress. The foundations(we didn’t have any) have been firmly put in place. We were given high expectations (albeit not achievable in a short time frame). I think the owners are slow builders and in it for the long haul. They didn’t turn away despite all provocation and challenges to do so. I believe they will keep committing to the project. Time will tell obviously.

 

 

Edited Friday at 13:16 by PauloGeordio

[SUPERTOON]

Just now, PauloGeordio said:

We are making steady progress. The foundations(we didn’t have any) have been firmly put in place. We were given high expectations (albeit not achievable in a short time frame). I think the owners are slow builders and innit for the long haul. The didn’t turn away despite all provocation and challenges to do so. I believe they will keep committing to the project. Time will tell obviously.

The stadium announcement will tell us all we need to know tbh. 

[The College Dropout]

1 hour ago, Keegans Export said:

Numerous other PL clubs would agree, judging by how desperate they were to plug that "loophole"

 

Obviously it didn't pass in the end but there was clearly concern amongst some of our rivals. 

 

 

 

That's my point. They failed and we didn't capitalise. Probably costing us European football this season.

 

51 minutes ago, 54 said:

To me, its literally comes down to a very simple question.

 

Are the people behind the scenes looking to improve the club in every aspect they can, yes or no? That answer is undoubtably yes to me, So therefore i'm happy.

 

Could there be things we could have done differently that may have had a more positive outcome in the here and now, absolutely, could we have tried different techniques to the way the club is structured, sure, but that is just conjecture and we have no way to know whether it'd go one way or another, and besides every club could say the exact same thing, its not just unique to us. So it comes down to that simple question, and simple minded as that may seem, as a fan, thats all that matters. At least to me anyway. 

What is the evidence for this?

IMO the stadium, training ground, exploiting loopholes and sponsorships would give the greatest indicator.

[54]

9 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

That's my point. They failed and we didn't capitalise. Probably costing us European football this season.

 

What is the evidence for this?

IMO the stadium, training ground, exploiting loopholes and sponsorships would give the greatest indicator.

What evidence is there that they aren't?  

 

Just off the top of my head:

• Stadium: We're in the process of putting plans together with an announcement expected in the turn of the new year, with them stating they want to sign one big cheque, no announcement doesn't mean its bad news. 
• Training Ground: They've completely redeveloped the current site, multiple times, since they're taken ownership. 
• Exploiting Loopholes: This shouldn't be something that held against them, and like I said, I personally wouldn't even want us to exploit loopholes.
• Sponsorships: Just looking at the "Partners" Pages of the clubs side, in the three years since the takeover, we've announce 14 sponsors, with Eales saying in his last communications that our revenue has increased by 33% in the last year.

I get that some of them things aren't sexy, and shiny, but they're things that show they're trying to improve the club, and to think otherwise is honestly mental to me tbh.

[The College Dropout]

7 minutes ago, 54 said:

What evidence is there that they aren't?  

 

Just off the top of my head:

• Stadium: We're in the process of putting plans together with an announcement expected in the turn of the new year, with them stating they want to sign one big cheque, no announcement doesn't mean its bad news. 
• Training Ground: They've completely redeveloped the current site, multiple times, since they're taken ownership. 
• Exploiting Loopholes: This shouldn't be something that held against them, and like I said, I personally wouldn't even want us to exploit loopholes.
• Sponsorships: Just looking at the "Partners" Pages of the clubs side, in the three years since the takeover, we've announce 14 sponsors, with Eales saying in his last communications that our revenue has increased by 33% in the last year.

I get that some of them things aren't sexy, and shiny, but they're things that show they're trying to improve the club, and to think otherwise is honestly mental to me tbh.

• Stadium - i'm hopeful here but it's taking more time than we had hoped and they initially benchmarked for
• Training ground - low hanging fruit. We await the big plans
• Exploiting loopholes - If they are not exploiting loopholes they are not doing everything they can. 
• Sponsorships - low-hanging fruit too. Done as much as any reasonable owner would.

Is the Saudi Investment Fund doing everything it can to make Newcastle #1 club in Europe? Everything? I don't have evidence of that. The evidence would say probably not.

 

 

Edited Friday at 14:31 by The College Dropout

[54]

12 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

• Stadium - i'm hopeful here but it's taking more time than we had hoped and they initially benchmarked for
• Training ground - low hanging fruit. We await the big plans
• Exploiting loopholes - If they are not exploiting loopholes they are not doing everything they can. 
• Sponsorships - low-hanging fruit too. Done as much as any reasonable owner would.

Is the Saudi Investment Fund doing everything it can to make Newcastle #1 club in Europe? Everything? I don't have evidence of that. The evidence would say probably not.

But they are improving the club, it may not be at a pace that you're liking, and to that #1 level, but to deny they're not actively trying to improve the club is just factually wrong imo. 

 

What you're essentially saying is you believe the club are purposely trying to go backwards, which they're not.

[The College Dropout]

24 minutes ago, 54 said:

But they are improving the club, it may not be at a pace that you're liking, and to that #1 level, but to deny they're not actively trying to improve the club is just factually wrong imo. 

 

What you're essentially saying is you believe the club are purposely trying to go backwards, which they're not.

Where did I say they are not making effort or go backwards?

 

We are progressing as a club undoubtedly. There’s evidence for that. 
 

You said they are doing everything they can. Thats different from making progress?

 

Yasir said himself he wants us to be #1 in every department. Thats not my stated ambition that’s our CEOs. And i do believe him because this seasons goals are ambitious. 
 

But I don’t think it’s possible for NUFC to be come #1 in every department moving the way we move. It’s too slow, it’s too cautious.  No business in the world can become #1 from #35 in a global and competitive and saturated market without urgency, big bets and a good appetite for risk. My current view is we are ambitious but are not actioning a strategy to meet that ambition. 
 

Levy has urgency.  Day one of the takeover you know he was moving. Days later they are trying to close loopholes.  Saudi start buying Saudi clubs, he’s moving to close the gaps.  Our rivals are urgent. Our rivals try and close loopholes. He’s doing everything he can to stop us.  Everything. He’s not wasting a day or taking a chance or trying look to play nice.  

 

 

Edited Friday at 15:08 by The College Dropout

[TRon]

33 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

Where did I say they are not making effort or go backwards?

 

We are progressing as a club undoubtedly. There’s evidence for that. 
 

You said they are doing everything they can. Thats different from making progress?

 

Yasir said himself he wants us to be #1 in every department. Thats not my stated ambition that’s our CEOs. And i do believe him because this seasons goals are ambitious. 
 

But I don’t think it’s possible for NUFC to be come #1 in every department moving the way we move. It’s too slow, it’s too cautious.  No business in the world can become #1 from #35 in a global and competitive and saturated market without urgency, big bets and a good appetite for risk. My current view is we are ambitious but are not actioning a strategy to meet that ambition. 
 

Levy has urgency.  Day one of the takeover you know he was moving. Days later they are trying to close loopholes.  Saudi start buying Saudi clubs, he’s moving to close the gaps.  Our rivals are urgent. Our rivals try and close loopholes. He’s doing everything he can to stop us.  Everything. He’s not wasting a day or taking a chance or trying look to play nice.  

 

 

 

 

If you are talking about Levy the Spurs owner, you are comparing apples to oranges. Spurs are one of the cartel clubs favoured by the PL, even with their stadium rebuild they got plenty of concessions. Even then to pay for it, he restricted investment in the squad. Is that what you are advocating PIF do?

 

 

[macphisto]

1 hour ago, TRon said:

 

If you are talking about Levy the Spurs owner, you are comparing apples to oranges. Spurs are one of the cartel clubs favoured by the PL, even with their stadium rebuild they got plenty of concessions. Even then to pay for it, he restricted investment in the squad. Is that what you are advocating PIF do?

I think he's talking about our opponents, people like Levy, being very proactive in preventing us from growing; in contrast to PIF's slow - slow approach. 

[The College Dropout]

4 minutes ago, macphisto said:

I think he's talking about our opponents, people like Levy, being very proactive in preventing us from growing; in contrast to PIF's slow - slow approach. 

Yep.