Howay

I think the biggest kick in the balls is why this was really blocked (not fully blocked but you know what I mean). To protect the rights of Qatar, one of the countries that are potentially worse than Saudi Arabia , currently in a lot of bother in France over links to funding terrorist organizations (supposedly a driving force behind why Saudi Arabia have cut ties with them as well as part of MBS trying to move the country away from those type of organizations). I agree with the points that KD brings, a lot of it troubles me as well. I think the reason a lot can turn a blind eye is this type of block has only come at our expense, Man City have a similar structure to what was proposed, Leicester’s owners aren’t exactly clean, Abramovic has a lot of baggage, then there are other dodgy owners. I think the human rights issues argument although well founded brings in a gray area of where to draw the line, I know a lot of journos will throw out some phrase about “you draw it at murderers like the Saudis” but then Man City’s owners are similarly dodgy on that ground. I just feel like football has long sold its soul and it’s a bit hard for it to claw that back. The deal was prevented simply due to the PL not wanting to rock the boat with their established teams, and to protect a noisy rights holder, that’s the bit that sits badly with me. If it was rejected due to human rights grounds, and there was a similar reckoning with a push on owners like Man City to change ownership I’d be more willing to accept it.

The reason for Biden is he’s the guy a lot of the moderate typical Republican voters could potentially be swayed to vote for, if they’d went with Bernie a lot would have just voted for Trump. Agree fully with Meenzer saying Biden’s VP pick is massively important, McCain selecting Sarah Palin severely damaged his campaign when he ran against Obama, so it’ll probably be a slightly boring choice to further try and win some voters from the right.

I think that’s a piece a lot of the journalists are missing. The reason most have attached themselves to this Saudi deal is it’s the only show in town and we know it, the club has basically been on sale for 13 years but Ashley’s price puts people off. I know Edwards and those of his ilk are annoyed about the reaction to Mauriss, but the fact is he just seems really off, from the timing of his interest, his links with Qatar, fraud investigations, supposedly bidding £50m over an agreed price despite the fact his bid could only be accepted if the other fell through. I honestly think if he seemed more trustworthy and genuine people would be interested, obviously the Saudi bid comes with super club status potential but I feel most just want a club that will at least try, a club that spends what it brings in and looks to kick on and improve. We finished 5th, got into Europe and all we bought was a midfielder that was clearly brought in with the intention of reselling/replacing either Cabaye or Tiote, that’s the club we are under this cunt.

Aye they’re so fucking thick. They’ll complain about their owners but not do anything as that’s what the mags do, then they all whinge that we have no right to complain as they’re worse than us (but also better, it just depends on which gives them the high ground in that particular discussion). Excited for what the homeless looking fella that has a tenner to his name does when he takes them over.

Our classy friends down the road are currently on Twitter berating all of the MPs who have written letters regarding the takeover. They’ve also been demanding why no one is writing letters about Sunderland, to which one Mp replied “literally not a single one of my constituents have asked me to”, they really are a twisted little breed .

Aye it’s fucking nonsense but as pointed out the mackems will fucking lap it up. The current bunch had that Juan Satori who they made out was amazingly connected and was going to bring all that investment into the club, on the documentary he looked like a bloke who was just happy for a day out and had no fucking clue what was going on while also looking down on the mackems, the fact he’s given fucking nowt to the club besides the quid or whatever he paid the Don points to the fact he’s never going to be this angel investor they’re dreaming of. No doubt this swamp rat has similar idiots ‘backing’ him.

Aye, I expect them to lay it on thick about how much we’re being a deluded set of cunts for not liking Ashley and wanting to target higher that lower mid table. Not that I plan on watching that dog shit.

It almost feels like Staveley and the Reubens are trying to pressure the PL to basically say they’ll approve it as a way to get the KSA back to the table. I don’t see it happening anyway but it seems like that’s what they’re doing.

ITK from Chopra it’s high time to pack everything in eh.

Signed it. I agree with those saying it likely won’t end up doing much but I suppose there’s nothing more we can really do, you’d hope some of the journalists who were going on about principles and ensuring things are ran by the right people etc would want to ensure an abhorrent nation such as Qatar doesn’t have the suspected influence through Bein, so we can fully expect Delaney et al to help give light to this

Aye, he’s just a miserable cunt that just seems to want to point score as you say. He was correct about the BZG bid seemingly being a bit of a non-starter, rather than bother learning about this bid he just assumed it was exactly the same and is now gloating that he’s right (despite the fact he’s not at all, the deal was absolutely happening if the PL hadn’t fucked on). He definitely takes pleasure in winding fans up, but then can’t take an ounce of criticism or winding up back as he always just falls back on that he’s lived in the NE for 20 years then turns off comments for his next wind up attempt. I just hope people start treating him like they should treat the PL, just switch it off, don’t read his shite, or give him clicks. I’d say he’d be worth sticking with if he ever gave any good information, but quite frankly during the time I’ve paid any attention to him he’s not broken any new information that’s actually that relevant, or even given any good insight into something someone else has broke, and honestly it’s just all negative. I mean he’s currently bigging up a potential bid that he somehow finds more credible than the one that was actually in the O&D test despite the fact the bid was being said (pretty sure by him) to have been accepted by Ashley weeks ago just pending the Saudis failing the O&D test, so did that not happen weeks ago if they’re just talking about bidding now yet Ashley and Penfold are 100% committed to the Saudi bid (the hint here being it’s the only fucking bid).

A real meeting of the minds there. What a pair of complete wankers.

Longstaff is already gone, I think his contract expired yesterday. He was apparently asking for £15k pw, so now we have to spend money to replace him plus whatever wages a new player would want. Fucking useless ownership, but I suppose we’ve known that for 13 fucking years.

You have to love pompous journalists like this one. Does he seriously think human rights issues were really part of the PL’s consideration during testing? If they did the deal would have been rejected and they wouldn’t have deals with nations like Qatar, the owners of Leicester, Manchester City, and likely others would be on dodgy ground too. If they can’t see why Newcastle fans would see this all as hypocritical to bring up they’re off their map. The PL itself created this conspiracy by not making any sort of decision in over 4 months, by offering absolutely no insight into what is going on during and now after the process, but again pompous wankers like this bloke are aiming down sight at the fans again, as they have done during this whole process. So next time we play Manchester City can we expect the analysis and discussion around the game to be discussing how honorable NUFC is, that our money isn’t blood money like theirs, we deserve to win as we’re doing things the right way and don’t have disgusting human rights abusers for owners, or will it be a wankfest about how immense Kevin De Bruyne and Aguero are while they sweep us aside before they sign off with what do Newcastle fans expect, why are they so demanding, etc? That alone gives these sanctimonious pricks their answer of why people were willing to accept Saudi ownership.

Aye, whatever way you spin it our attacking stats were poor last season, it’s fairly probable we will sell our best player and with an owner that really couldn’t give a fuck now the chances of adequate replacement are low. It’s going to be tough to stay up next season, especially looking the the teams coming up and the ambition they have.

Not really Ashley’s scene. There’s bound to be some posh fireplaces in the houses or Parliament, or Downing Street that are prime for the threat of vomit.

True enough, I was coming at it from the angle that the way the rights have been sold to that region is absurd (I don’t think it’s illegal) and with the situation in that region regarding the fall out Qatar has had with many of their neighbors surely it would be in everyone’s best interest to reassess rather than just give up on everything due to the old deal having a year or two left to run. I understand Qatar would likely fight it as it’s giving them this control which is more important to them than the loss of revenue from no broadcasts in these countries, but in doing so that would potentially make their argument of not paying if the deal went through fairly weak since people were trying to mitigate and make things as whole as they could be. The PL could have potentially made more money out of it (charging those countries more than the pro-rata share of Bein rights). I understand they have a contract and probably can’t be bothered, plus it’s clear they don’t want NUFC challenging the current established ‘elite’. I’m not sure if this regional rights is done elsewhere but I just don’t see how it could have, for example I think it’d be highly unlikely Japan and other nations would allow a Chinese broadcaster to hold the rights to distribute the PL within their country. It’s a bit of a weird one and has literally caused all of the issues in this takeover. Maybe I am completely wrong and the PL’s hands were tied here, I’m just a bit hesitant to give them that benefit seeing as they’ve handled this whole process so poorly.

Agreed, if it really was a true process they were working hard on they’d surely have some idea of a time line, to just keep saying there wasn’t one was baffling. I think the troubling part was that it’s pretty clear the lack of transparency was also being shown to both the potential buyer and current owner of the club as well which is odd, I understand you’re not going to disclose everything to them but surely you’d be giving them some kind of time line or at least gates they were passing/upcoming hurdles during the process? It honestly seems like they were as in the dark as everyone outside of the bid too. Having a completely sealed off process that can’t be tracked or seen by anyone else at all with no time frame (especially when working on a deal that literally has a timeline) stinks of corruption/collusion as you mention.

Possible for sure. I’d add to my point that although it appears on face value to be an issue for Bein it’s likely more in their favor to just keep KSA out like this regardless of holding those rights being a waste of money, as it keeps KSA out of the football world Qatar are currently entrenching themselves in.

Fair, I just think the situation is a disaster for all parties (aside from probably the PL) as Bein hold rights to a country that doesn’t allow them air time so they’re making nothing from that, KSA’s issues with this are obvious. So it would have surely suited them to come to some type of arrangement. I get your point on opening the door to others but are many of the rights bundled for a whole region like this? It would also have to be very specific countries that would do this (ones with a leadership like KSA) as otherwise corporations that just happen to be based in a company wouldn’t wield the sort of clout to have a foreign company’s channel banned on a basis like this. Either way I take the point, but I just find it ridiculous they’d bundle the MENA rights as the fact Bein is banned in KSA, Egypt, and potentially other countries points to how ridiculous it is.

Aye, having the rights on a regional basis is absolutely ridiculous. Since Bein had such an issue with the whole thing surely they could have accepted a pro-rata reduction in the cost of their rights to remove KSA, then KSA could negotiate their own deal with the PL. I understand it would be difficult to do, and that Bein already have a signed agreement so they very well could have rejected the compromise, but if they did then surely they would have no grounds for further complaints as something along those lines would have been an equitable solution for them (especially as they’re paying for rights to a country they get no benefit from), courts would look to see if the parties had tried to reach an equitable compromise and if Bein had just rejected this idea and then withheld payment citing KSA owning Newcastle and disagreement over dissolution of their rights due to a state backed piracy conspiracy it’d be a very difficult case for Bein to win surely. If it’s true the PL dismissed it out hand that points further to the fact they wanted to deal to collapse.

Aye but he posted a gerrin about the mag takeover being off so therefore he’s a MLF. I can’t wait to hear about how he just has to move some money around and secure a few loans anytime they want to buy a player. Honestly man when will they fucking look at stuff objectively? There’s a reason everyone is worried about this Henry Mauriss, he seems completely full of shit and as things stand Ashley honestly does seem a better option, if he came out saying mackems are little paedo supporting tramps that shite on seats I’d still not be on board with the bloke.

Aye this sums it up. Have to love all the outpouring of journalists now bigging the club up “it’s a giant club and people will be queuing up to buy it, there’s no way only the Saudi Arabians could take it over”, desperate to keep NUFC fans engaged and clicking on their shite, no one will pay what Ashley wants so in that sense this lot really were the only show in town. His price won’t have changed despite the current situation, and honestly the PL have botched their hand imo. They’ve basically announced that piracy is a massive problem for their rights holders (I know it is of course an issue but they could have played it off before as a smaller one) and the result of this shithousery is potentially a more aggressive, rampant, state backed version. Bein now hold all the cards for the 2022 renewal as it’s fairly unlikely the Saudis will bother if they truly have been discouraged and feel disrespected, so now Bein has a free run at the rights and will highlight the piracy fears when negotiating.

I know no one is in the mood for ITK info, but I have pretty reliable info that Bruceys list of targets are all Championship players. Nowt we wouldn’t expect mind, but still an absolute drop through the fucking floor after the Saudi bid.