PIF, PCP, and RB Sports & Media

[Jackie Broon]

5 minutes ago, Thumbheed said:

 

It was widely reported that they would still be willing buyers even if we'd gone down last season, so I think there's far far more to this purchase than an advantageous FFP position, hence why selling up just seems incredibly unlikely. 

 

 

A lot of things were widely reported during the course of takeover, not many of those reports turned out to be accurate.

 

I hope you're right (or better still, that we're not in a position to find out) I'm not so confident.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by Jackie Broon

[Thumbheed]

Yeh true. I just seem to remember that being reported pretty unanimously though. 

 

I'm confident they'll stay were we to go down but I'm also confident they'd sell if we were to stay down. 

[Manxst]

2 minutes ago, Jackie Broon said:

 

A lot of things were widely reported during the course of takeover, not many of those reports turned out to be accurate.

 

I hope you're right (or better still, that we're not in a position to find out) I'm not so confident.

 

 

 

But there has been literally zero reports (I think?) about them cutting losses in the event of relegation? Everything points to them not doing this. Would Staveley and the Reubens have bought the club in the precarious position they all knew it to be in, knowing that PIF would likely walk? No chance. PIF bought it themselves, knowing the clubs position and the chance of relegation. The owners have stated it’s a long term investment (not a short term cut and run in which PIF would lose massive face in the Arab world). I also think that they welcome the Staveley/Reuben involvement, or slse they would simply have bought the club outright themselves- buying another club after selling their share in ours, and I doubt they’d have the same compatible and amiable relationship with any other parties.  

[Jackie Broon]

1 minute ago, Manxst said:

But there has been literally zero reports (I think?) about them cutting losses in the event of relegation? Everything points to them not doing this. Would Staveley and the Reubens have bought the club in the precarious position they all knew it to be in, knowing that PIF would likely walk? No chance. PIF bought it themselves, knowing the clubs position and the chance of relegation. The owners have stated it’s a long term investment (not a short term cut and run in which PIF would lose massive face in the Arab world). I also think that they welcome the Staveley/Reuben involvement, or slse they would simply have bought the club outright themselves- buying another club after selling their share in ours, and I doubt they’d have the same compatible and amiable relationship with any other parties.  

 

I hope you're right and a lot of that does make sense. Although they're hardly going to announce to the world that they might cut their losses if we go down, I also think that they genuinely didn't realise we were going to end up in such a perilous position when they took over.

 

[TRon]

1 hour ago, Happinesstan said:

 

Our owner for the past 14 years was rich, our current situation is not directly related to finances. Ashley used the club for his own purposes, PIF intend to do the same, but they're prepared to gloss over it with a trophy or two.

 

 

 

 

Ashley wasn't rich in comparison to the big hitters in the PL, that's the issue. He argued to compete for CL places you needed funding of a small state, e.g. Abramovich or UAE. 

 

PIF are representing Saudis, they will spend what it takes to get to the CL. If you don't like that fair enough, but this is the playing field now, you can either buy a ticket or stay out of the arena. 

[RS]

PIF were told that we would have to be relegated as part of the takeover deal, hence the implementation of these temporary rules that will be lifted next season when we are in the championship.  This is all true in my tin foil hat world. 

[gjohnson]

4 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

Ashley wasn't rich in comparison to the big hitters in the PL, that's the issue. He argued to compete for CL places you needed funding of a small state, e.g. Abramovich or UAE. 

 

PIF are representing Saudis, they will spend what it takes to get to the CL. If you don't like that fair enough, but this is the playing field now, you can either buy a ticket or stay out of the arena. 

When he bought us he was only behind what was the top 4 and possibly Tottenham in terms of actual wealth.

[Thiago]

We can dance around it all we want, but PIF and Ashley both see the club as something they can use to their benefit. That's owners of football clubs at the top level. No one is genuinely doing it for philanthropic reasons. 

 

The only difference in that motivation is that PIF will make us a much better football team. It won't get me championing their cause at all.

[NE27]

53 minutes ago, Jackie Broon said:

 

Because they wanted a PL club, Staveley has said they looked at Inter as an alternative but the Italian league is a mess.

 

 

 

 

It certainly is a mess. And maybe in the wider public's eye, a less desirable league.

 

If they pull out due to relegation and weren't aware of what they were signing up too I can see them being fucking skint in no time 

 

You'd really like to HOPE that this time our owners have done extensive due diligence and not bought on a whim and ready to drop at the first inconvenience. Like I say, would make the last 18 months a very strange one.

[TRon]

4 minutes ago, gjohnson said:

When he bought us he was only behind what was the top 4 and possibly Tottenham in terms of actual wealth.

 

Those are still bad odds (in his eyes) to spend the sort of money it would take to get in the CL considering Chelsea and City were just going to blow everyone out of the water, then you still have Man U who were far wealthier than us. 

 

I'm just saying, PIF will not worry about whether they can compete on finances with anyone, there is a difference. 

[Jackie Broon]

1 minute ago, NE27 said:

 

It certainly is a mess. And maybe in the wider public's eye, a less desirable league.

 

If they pull out due to relegation and weren't aware of what they were signing up too I can see them being fucking skint in no time 

 

You'd really like to HOPE that this time our owners have done extensive due diligence and not bought on a whim and ready to drop at the first inconvenience. Like I say, would make the last 18 months a very strange one.

 

It wouldn't be strange, it would be the most Newcastle United thing ever to get bought be the richest owners in world football after an 18 month battle only to get relegated and dumped by them.

[Scoot]

1 minute ago, Jackie Broon said:

 

It wouldn't be strange, it would be the most Newcastle United thing ever to get bought be the richest owners in world football after an 18 month battle only to get relegated and dumped by them.

 

Come on Jackie, you've gone all negative!

 

Obviously its a possibility, but I cannot see that happening. Not in my opinion anyway.

[christ]

It wouldn’t be part of their plan, but I don’t know why they’d immediately sell us at a huge loss rather than attempt to get us back up.

[Guest HTT II]

They effectively paid 1.3bn for us, they aren’t walking away man, even if we do go down 

[Awaymag]

Man, we are so damaged.  Maybe we can launch a class action lawsuit against Ashley for emotional torture and entrapment!

[Guest HTT II]

3 hours ago, macphisto said:

That's not organic growth, 2nd to Man U after only 5 years, ahead of Liverpool. It was fuelled by debt, our income didn't cover a transfer like Shearer's together with our other expenditure at the time. That's why we had the years under Dalglish where we had to buy players like Rush, Pearce and Barnes. We were fairly skint due to our debt. For info, I know what you're saying about our commercial deals, for example I remember the Adidas advert with Ferdinand kicking a ball being shown around the country.

 

Anyway, my major point is that we have had dramatic growth in the past and no one cared less; everyone loved it.

It was organic growth as the debt was sustainable and based on a proper sound business model, most major companies have debt and fund operations through that, a football club should be no different. We did have to reign it in of course under Dalglish and then towards the end of Sir Bobby’s time, but that’s good business sense too. The point I’m making is that the Shearers, the coming second, the wages we could afford, all come about because fans were buying absolutely everything and because of KK, the brand of the team and how we played, major business’ wanted to get involved and help bankroll the club too, hence the rise in our turnover and commercial revenues which were ridiculous at the time. It was all internally driven. That’s why I’ve never begrudged Man Utd their success under Fergie and feel, as @Yorkieso eloquently wrote in regards to Liverpool, there are alternative ways than just having some sovereign state or rich sugar daddy come in and buy success.

[TRon]

8 minutes ago, HTT II said:

It was organic growth as the debt was sustainable and based on a proper sound business model, most major companies have debt and fund operations through that, a football club should be no different. We did have to reign it in of course under Dalglish and then towards the end of Sir Bobby’s time, but that’s good business sense too. The point I’m making is that the Shearers, the coming second, the wages we could afford, all come about because fans were buying absolutely everything and because of KK, the brand of the team and how we played, major business’ wanted to get involved and help bankroll the club too, hence the rise in our turnover and commercial revenues which were ridiculous at the time. It was all internally driven. That’s why I’ve never begrudged Man Utd their success under Fergie and feel, as @Yorkieso eloquently wrote in regards to Liverpool, there are alternative ways than just having some sovereign state or rich sugar daddy come in and buy success.

 

In an ideal world there would be alternatives where you could punch your weight, but as long as you have sovereign state owned clubs, it's not a level playing field. Like the old Billy Joel song goes, we didn't start the fire. All we did was pick up the biggest flame thrower once the match had been lit. 

[madras]

19 minutes ago, HTT II said:

It was organic growth as the debt was sustainable and based on a proper sound business model, most major companies have debt and fund operations through that, a football club should be no different. We did have to reign it in of course under Dalglish and then towards the end of Sir Bobby’s time, but that’s good business sense too. The point I’m making is that the Shearers, the coming second, the wages we could afford, all come about because fans were buying absolutely everything and because of KK, the brand of the team and how we played, major business’ wanted to get involved and help bankroll the club too, hence the rise in our turnover and commercial revenues which were ridiculous at the time. It was all internally driven. That’s why I’ve never begrudged Man Utd their success under Fergie and feel, as @Yorkieso eloquently wrote in regards to Liverpool, there are alternative ways than just having some sovereign state or rich sugar daddy come in and buy success.

Didn't we reign it in because it wasn't sustainable ?

[STM]

I don't want to be that club that spends 30m here, 30m there on players who fail and never amount to anything.

 

I'd rather the club put that money into the academy, the stadium, the training ground and most importantly the staff. A top class management structure who know exactly what it takes to be a success. Always bemused me that a football club is willing to spend whatever amount on a player but isn't willing to throw that amount of money at a top notch DOF/recruitment guy, who would pay their wage back in no time by signing the right players at the right price etc.

 

Commercially we are a million miles off where we should be too. We could easily get bigger sponsors than Spurs for example, who are punching way above their weight (to their credit) with regards to fanbase and reach.

 

In short, get stuff behind the scenes sorted, the football results will follow.

[macphisto]

22 minutes ago, HTT II said:

It was organic growth as the debt was sustainable and based on a proper sound business model, most major companies have debt and fund operations through that, a football club should be no different. We did have to reign it in of course under Dalglish and then towards the end of Sir Bobby’s time, but that’s good business sense too. The point I’m making is that the Shearers, the coming second, the wages we could afford, all come about because fans were buying absolutely everything and because of KK, the brand of the team and how we played, major business’ wanted to get involved and help bankroll the club too, hence the rise in our turnover and commercial revenues which were ridiculous at the time. It was all internally driven. That’s why I’ve never begrudged Man Utd their success under Fergie and feel, as @Yorkieso eloquently wrote in regards to Liverpool, there are alternative ways than just having some sovereign state or rich sugar daddy come in and buy success.

What major companies, Newcastle Brown Ale? We'll just have to disagree on whether coming from the bottom of the 2nd division to spending what we did in such a short time is organic growth or not. To make the strides that we did back then was not organic growth in my view as that would imply building a club over a much longer time frame and having the right foundations in place; by the end of that period we didn't even have a reserve team. Newcastle was falsely built up at the time through external debt to maximise the return for the Halls when they floated the club. After that we were never able to spend like that again.

 

As I say, my major point was that no one complained back then when we were breaking transfer records which is something we had never done in our history.

[Guest HTT II]

17 minutes ago, macphisto said:

What major companies, Newcastle Brown Ale? We'll just have to disagree on whether coming from the bottom of the 2nd division to spending what we did in such a short time is organic growth or not. To make the strides that we did back then was not organic growth in my view as that would imply building a club over a much longer time frame and having the right foundations in place; by the end of that period we didn't even have a reserve team. Newcastle was falsely built up at the time through external debt to maximise the return for the Halls when they floated the club. After that we were never able to spend like that again.

 

As I say, my major point was that no one complained back then when we were breaking transfer records which is something we had never done in our history.

Yes Newcastle & Scottish breweries, Asics then Adidas, the PL money of course and we bought and sold really well. The stadium revamp was mainly down to the grants following the Taylor Report after Hillsborough. We spent less gaining promotion than WHU if I remember right and were outspent net by even the likes of Villa during that period where most clubs were spending more than they had ever spent. Unlike a lot of those clubs though, their revenues were not as strong as ours or were limited to a certain ceiling where as ours wasn’t and I do broadly agree with you, we have 129 years of rich history, culture and success on and off the pitch, even if it hasn’t always materialised in trophies, that’s only going to be enhanced and built on you’d hope. I maintain. However, our growth under KK was organic, self sustaining to a point and entirely inline with a successful business performing at its max. Also, the debt wasn’t even big even by those days standards, and every penny the club made it spent. Every business has debt, we had far less than most clubs and it wasn’t a debt to an owner. 

[Guest HTT II]

37 minutes ago, madras said:

Didn't we reign it in because it wasn't sustainable ?

We did so more to appease the SE and we did reign it in because it wasn’t always sustainable at the rate we were going. If only we had won the league, we didn’t float on the SE and KK stayed, I believe we’d have won lots of silverware and been a major force in Europe maximising our revenues even more. Scrapping the reserves and having no real youth set up was a major blow because it meant we had to go out and buy players rather than develop our own. 

[Guest HTT II]

27 minutes ago, STM said:

I don't want to be that club that spends 30m here, 30m there on players who fail and never amount to anything.

 

I'd rather the club put that money into the academy, the stadium, the training ground and most importantly the staff. A top class management structure who know exactly what it takes to be a success. Always bemused me that a football club is willing to spend whatever amount on a player but isn't willing to throw that amount of money at a top notch DOF/recruitment guy, who would pay their wage back in no time by signing the right players at the right price etc.

 

Commercially we are a million miles off where we should be too. We could easily get bigger sponsors than Spurs for example, who are punching way above their weight (to their credit) with regards to fanbase and reach.

 

In short, get stuff behind the scenes sorted, the football results will follow.

Couldn’t agree more. Spent 100m on the academy and we will be producing 100m pound players in a decade easily. 

[Happinesstan]

2 minutes ago, HTT II said:

Yes Newcastle & Scottish breweries, Asics then Adidas, the PL money of course and we bought and sold really well. The stadium revamp was mainly down to the grants following the Taylor Report after Hillsborough. We spent less gaining promotion than WHU if I remember right and were outspent net by even the likes of Villa during that period where most clubs were spending more than they had ever spent. Unlike a lot of those clubs though, their revenues were not as strong as ours or were limited to a certain ceiling where as ours wasn’t and I do broadly agree with you, we have 129 years of rich history, culture and success on and off the pitch, even if it hasn’t always materialised in trophies, that’s only going to be enhanced and built on you’d hope. I maintain. However, our growth under KK was organic, self sustaining to a point and entirely inline with a successful business performing at its max. Also, the debt wasn’t even big even by those days standards, and every penny the club made it spent. Every business has debt, we had far less than most clubs and it wasn’t a debt to an owner. 

You're mostly spot on but the sustainability was heavily dependent on continued success. It was a bold plan, with huge ambition and belief.

[Guest HTT II]

Just now, Happinesstan said:

You're mostly spot on but the sustainability was heavily dependent on continued success. It was a bold plan, with huge ambition and belief.

Of course, and that’s the only way to achieve both, but it has to be balanced and we couldn’t ever quite get that right once SJH basically took a back seat and FS took more control and started flicking managers around and doing dodgy deals with agents and his family members…