Barcodes now owned by Saudi lead consortium

[Beefymcfc]

I hope City's lawyers are taking a VERY close look at all 18 of the clubs voting for this, and THEIR sponsorship deals.
This is very much a future attack on City.

I’m sure we will and that’s what the PL lawyers will be looking at as they won’t want to be creating a cartel.

Maybe some of the deals that the Middle East country’s have made with other PL clubs may now be reassessed and said clubs lose out on lucrative sponsorship. Well, I have hope anyway.

[Bluemoon4610]

I hope City's lawyers are taking a VERY close look at all 18 of the clubs voting for this, and THEIR sponsorship deals.
This is very much a future attack on City.

I’m sure we will and that’s what the PL lawyers will be looking at as they won’t want to be creating a cartel.

Maybe some of the deals that the Middle East country’s have made with other PL clubs may now be reassessed and said clubs lose out on lucrative sponsorship. Well, I have hope anyway.

They'll all be deemed OK as there's no link between the club and the sponsor - even if those deals are over-priced. Penalising those won't hurt the non-cartel targets.

[Beefymcfc]

I hope City's lawyers are taking a VERY close look at all 18 of the clubs voting for this, and THEIR sponsorship deals.
This is very much a future attack on City.

I’m sure we will and that’s what the PL lawyers will be looking at as they won’t want to be creating a cartel.

Maybe some of the deals that the Middle East country’s have made with other PL clubs may now be reassessed and said clubs lose out on lucrative sponsorship. Well, I have hope anyway.

They'll all be deemed OK as there's no link between the club and the sponsor - even if those deals are over-priced. Penalising those won't hurt the non-cartel targets.

I’m more talking about the sponsors like Saudi Telecom who will surely be under orders. Also, KSA do a lot of business elsewhere and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of their business deals have an understanding of not supporting their competitors, especially after we hear that Saudi Arabia are being put forward for a future World Cup.

[PaulieIrish]

I'm surprised that Leicester voted for this also. Surely they didn't just rename the stadium without some sponsorship income. From wikipedia:

It is named after travel retail group King Power,[2] a company owned by the club's owners.

[Dimples]

Saudi and the USA are economic and military allies.
Billions of $s.
Let's pretend the desperate cartel ban on sponsorship could be implementd.
Saudi can easily get sponsorship from any number of independent firms in the USA who they do business with.

For ex, how about Newcastle start with a sponsorship deal from a major USA arms manufacturer (or a UK one) ?

[johnny crossan]

and so the cartel counter offensive begins, the January window will soon be closed for them pending new FFP restrictions next summer
Inside the ‘incredible’ Premier League meeting – and what it means for Newcastle and beyond

Dan Sheldon and more 4h ago 149

One club executive left Monday’s emergency Premier League meeting and described it as the “most astonishing” they had ever attended. That feeling was shared across the board.

“I’d never seen or heard anything like it in my life… it was incredible,” mused a person present. You get the idea: this wasn’t a standard shareholders’ meeting.

The reason for their incredulity was because they had listened to a verbal statement from Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s managing director and a man very much associated with the old Mike Ashley regime. He threatened legal action against not only the Premier League but also the executives in attendance if a vote was passed to block the club from making lucrative sponsorship deals. It also transpired Newcastle had sent a letter outlining their stance to the Premier League before the meeting but Charnley’s statement was the first other club executives had heard of it.

“Newcastle only sent the letter to the Premier League,” said a source. “Everyone has now seen the letter but nobody knew it existed before the meeting started. We found out from Lee’s statement.”

Nineteen of the Premier League clubs had already held an extraordinary meeting last week, at which officials tried to explain the decision to sanction Newcastle’s takeover by a Saudi Arabia-linked consortium fronted by Amanda Staveley, a deal that many of its members vehemently opposed for multiple reasons.

Tensions were already simmering before Monday’s meeting at the Premier League’s Paddington headquarters in London but Charnley’s statement created a siege mentality among those present. It led to 18 clubs voting in favour — Newcastle voted against and Manchester City abstained — of introducing a temporary amendment that bans new commercial opportunities involving pre-existing business relationships going through.

Newcastle
Charnley (right) with former Newcastle owner Ashley in February 2020 (Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
In layman’s terms, this would stop Saudia, Saudi Arabia’s airline, for example, from immediately becoming Newcastle’s shirt sponsors. “Other clubs are worried that next week Newcastle’s shirt sponsor will be paid off and a new one will appear, agreeing to pay them £100 million a year,” a source said.

“When Charnley spoke about us all being liable, it split the room,” said a Premier League chairman. “Some of the clubs said they needed to take time to reflect on that. But a lot of other clubs said, ‘No, fuck this, we’re not going to be threatened’.”

Multiple sources indicated that Crystal Palace’s part-owner and chairman, Steve Parish, was the most vociferous and rallied the other clubs together to vote against the proposals, especially after being threatened with legal action.

“He basically said, ‘I don’t care about your threats’,” the chairman present continued. “Ultimately what he (Parish) said carried the room because everyone, bar two clubs, voted in favour.”

Other executives, The Athletic has been told, were keen for the meeting to be paused so that the possibility of being sued could be discussed in more detail before they made a rational decision.

But the vote was passed through and contributed to one of the most explosive Premier League meetings in recent history.

“The point of it was to try to scare people into not voting for the resolution,” said one executive. “It actually made people vote in favour, for sure.”

Here, The Athletic explains what happened and what it means — for Newcastle and beyond…

What was said?

“Charnley read a statement from Newcastle saying the new rules would be unlawful, discriminatory and prejudicial,” said a well-placed source. “But incredibly, the statement also said that the new rules would open up the Premier League, the other clubs and directors of other clubs to be liable for that.”

Several club executives, speaking anonymously to The Athletic, criticised Newcastle’s new owners — a representative of Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns 80 per cent of the club, or 10 per cent shareholders PCP Capital Partners and the Reuben brothers — for not showing up to the meeting and sending Charnley instead.

“They just didn’t turn up, except for Lee who sat there and read a statement like he was at a German wedding,” a source said.

“Poor old Lee, put in an impossible position like a puppet,” said another. “Absolutely unbelievable.”

There was disbelief that the club’s new buyers didn’t attend the meeting, be it in person like around 80 per cent of attendees or via Zoom, but there was widespread sympathy for Charnley.

“We all like Lee,” a well-placed figure reflected. “He’s Mike Ashley’s man and sending your outgoing CEO to make legal threats to the rest of the league is not great.

“If I’d been advising Newcastle, I’d have told them, ‘Vote for this and then wait and see what comes back… make the rules evolve in a way you want further down the line’, but don’t threaten people.”

“They (Newcastle’s new owners) just needed to turn up to the meeting, sit down and talk it through,” said another executive. “There was no need for all of this.”

Amanda Staveley Newcastle
Executives were surprised to see Newcastle’s new owners, such as Amanda Staveley, were not at the meeting (Photo: Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)
Although Parish led calls for the vote to be held, it is understood Arsenal, Tottenham, Everton and Aston Villa were also vehemently in favour of putting a temporary ban on related-party sponsorships in place.

“Everybody is so emotional about it,” an executive said. “(Alan Pace) at Burnley is up in arms. He’s so agitated it’s been allowed to happen.”

Have Newcastle been targeted by rival clubs?

This is certainly how it looks, especially as they are now backed by one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds and are still in the relegation zone, but club executives will point to the fact that new rules have been a long time coming.

One source, defending Newcastle, admitted that fresh regulations should have already been put in place as it now looks like a deliberate witch hunt to prevent the north-east club from replicating the success Manchester City have achieved over the past decade.

“You bring Newcastle to the table and say, ‘Let’s look at the rules together’,” the Premier League executive explained. “The rule amendments are right, but there’s no need to make it an anti-Newcastle statement.”

They also referred, by way of example, to USM Holdings, the company owned by Everton owner Farhad Moshiri’s business partner Alisher Usmanov, agreeing a reported £12 million-a-year deal re-name Finch Farm — Everton’s training ground — to USM Finch Farm. The firm has also concluded a £30 million deal to gain an exclusive option of sponsoring the club’s new stadium, even though it is still under construction.

Everton, stadium
Everton have secured planning permission for a new stadium at Liverpool’s Bramley-Moore Dock (Photo: Everton Football Club)
Manchester City, who are backed by the Abu Dhabi United Group, remained neutral throughout the meeting, and Chelsea and Liverpool stayed relatively silent.

It is understood that Liverpool fully support the proposals, even if they are not the ones driving them, but have become more careful about what they say at Premier League meetings after being burned before.

Manchester United, like Liverpool, are not leading the calls for change but did vote in favour of new regulations being put in place.

Newcastle’s hierarchy were involved in talks of their own on Monday, with Staveley travelling down to London to meet other members of the new board. This was planned already and not a reaction to the outcome of the Premier League meeting. However, it is understood Staveley was up until the early hours of Tuesday morning digesting what happened.

What happens next?

The Premier League are setting up a working group, which will be populated by representatives from clubs who put themselves forward, to create long-lasting measures. The expectation is that they will report back in three weeks to discuss the solution they have come up with.

One executive on the call praised Jon Varney, Brentford’s chief executive, who is believed to have suggested several intelligent proposals about what can be done. Manchester United’s Richard Arnold is also being viewed as someone incredibly knowledgeable about commercial deals, although it was the club’s head of legal who attended on Monday.

“Jon is commercially savvy,” the source said. “Rather than getting carried away with the politics, he actually understands commercial contracts.

“In reality, most of us don’t know the ins and outs of what we can and can’t do commercially as it’s not our job. But there a few people like Richard Arnold and Jon Varney who do know because it’s their job and they haven’t had to worry about the football side of the club.”

How will this impact Newcastle and the other clubs in the future?

There are relatively few clubs in the Premier League that rely on major related-party contracts, which is why Newcastle’s confrontational letter claimed that rules forbidding or restricting deals of that nature would be discriminatory. Newcastle feel that new regulations are specifically targeting a very small group of clubs and owners.

Manchester City have been accused of earning heavily from related-party deals in the past. Reflecting on their abstention, one director told The Athletic: “It’s not that City will be massively affected immediately. They just don’t like the direction of travel.”

For now, the 18 clubs voting in favour has imposed a three-week moratorium on related-party sponsorship — a direct result of the fear that Newcastle would try to act quickly by arranging and announcing major new sponsors before all loopholes were closed. A draft version of new rules controlling related parties should be completed by the end of that three-week period, ready for debate and amendments.

Manchester City
Manchester City play at the City of Manchester Stadium, known as the Etihad under sponsorship terms (Photo: Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
It was a warning, as a well-placed executive put it, that Newcastle’s owners “can’t just waltz in and do what City did” after the club was taken over in 2008. The view of the 18 clubs is that almost all of their own commercial revenue is generated through conventional means. They argue that a system whereby owners can use related parties to secure vastly inflated and unrealistic income is unfair and in need of reform.

The aim is to establish regulations that not only limit related-party contracts but also require them to be approved by the Premier League before they are finalised, rather than fought over retrospectively. Clubs would be forbidden from taking the money and then arguing about it later.

Close attention would be paid to market value and inflated deals would be blocked. Industry sources estimate that Newcastle’s shirt deal is worth in the region of £5 million annually. A related company trying to pay three or four times as much would be forced to explain how and why that valuation had been reached — and most likely see the agreement rejected.

Premier League sources have told The Athletic that the rules will be broad and wide-reaching. They could cover any of the firms that the PIF, for example, has invested in — even the likes of Disney.

“If Disney offers £4 million a year to sponsor the shirt, no one’s going to complain,” said one. “It’s a fair deal. But if they offer £20 million, they could well be classed as a related party — simply because it’s not a realistic market value. That’s the point.

“I don’t think anyone seriously thinks Disney would do that but there might be other related companies, less well known, who could be used to pay well over the odds.”

What other consequences might there be?

There is a strong possibility that this saga will spell the end of Premier League chairman Gary Hoffman.

Some Premier League clubs were already concerned about his leadership before the Newcastle takeover. One director spoken to by The Athletic remarked that the Project Big Picture and European Super League fiascos “wouldn’t have happened under (former executive chairman Richard) Scudamore”. Many who sit in the Premier League’s fortnightly meetings share that view.

The Athletic has been told that the “final straw” for Hoffman was the Premier League announcing the Newcastle takeover to its member clubs via a curt email with little explanation. The clubs’ expectation was that they would at least have received a phone call outlining the reasons for the approval and the Premier League’s sudden change in stance. Again, that was Scudamore’s style.

Rival clubs were unhappy that it was made to look as if all 19 agreed with the takeover. In fact, they had not been consulted about it. The previous Premier League meeting did not even have the Saudi buyout of Newcastle as an agenda item. The first many of them knew about the sale going through was when they read about it in the media.

One director said he believed Hoffman would be ousted and the Premier League’s failure to warn clubs of Newcastle’s impending legal threat will not help his popularity or the strength of his position.

The clubs think the job of Premier League chairman should be one of the most coveted in the country — and that better leadership would allow Premier League chief executive Richard Masters to be more productive. Confidence in Masters appears to be intact.

Additional contributors: Adam Crafton and George Caulkin

(Top photo: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

What did you think

[Outcast]

and so the cartel counter offensive begins, the January window will soon be closed for them pending new FFP restrictions next summer
Inside the ‘incredible’ Premier League meeting – and what it means for Newcastle and beyond

Dan Sheldon and more 4h ago 149

One club executive left Monday’s emergency Premier League meeting and described it as the “most astonishing” they had ever attended. That feeling was shared across the board.

“I’d never seen or heard anything like it in my life… it was incredible,” mused a person present. You get the idea: this wasn’t a standard shareholders’ meeting.

The reason for their incredulity was because they had listened to a verbal statement from Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s managing director and a man very much associated with the old Mike Ashley regime. He threatened legal action against not only the Premier League but also the executives in attendance if a vote was passed to block the club from making lucrative sponsorship deals. It also transpired Newcastle had sent a letter outlining their stance to the Premier League before the meeting but Charnley’s statement was the first other club executives had heard of it.

“Newcastle only sent the letter to the Premier League,” said a source. “Everyone has now seen the letter but nobody knew it existed before the meeting started. We found out from Lee’s statement.”

Nineteen of the Premier League clubs had already held an extraordinary meeting last week, at which officials tried to explain the decision to sanction Newcastle’s takeover by a Saudi Arabia-linked consortium fronted by Amanda Staveley, a deal that many of its members vehemently opposed for multiple reasons.

Tensions were already simmering before Monday’s meeting at the Premier League’s Paddington headquarters in London but Charnley’s statement created a siege mentality among those present. It led to 18 clubs voting in favour — Newcastle voted against and Manchester City abstained — of introducing a temporary amendment that bans new commercial opportunities involving pre-existing business relationships going through.

Newcastle
Charnley (right) with former Newcastle owner Ashley in February 2020 (Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
In layman’s terms, this would stop Saudia, Saudi Arabia’s airline, for example, from immediately becoming Newcastle’s shirt sponsors. “Other clubs are worried that next week Newcastle’s shirt sponsor will be paid off and a new one will appear, agreeing to pay them £100 million a year,” a source said.

“When Charnley spoke about us all being liable, it split the room,” said a Premier League chairman. “Some of the clubs said they needed to take time to reflect on that. But a lot of other clubs said, ‘No, fuck this, we’re not going to be threatened’.”

Multiple sources indicated that Crystal Palace’s part-owner and chairman, Steve Parish, was the most vociferous and rallied the other clubs together to vote against the proposals, especially after being threatened with legal action.

“He basically said, ‘I don’t care about your threats’,” the chairman present continued. “Ultimately what he (Parish) said carried the room because everyone, bar two clubs, voted in favour.”

Other executives, The Athletic has been told, were keen for the meeting to be paused so that the possibility of being sued could be discussed in more detail before they made a rational decision.

But the vote was passed through and contributed to one of the most explosive Premier League meetings in recent history.

“The point of it was to try to scare people into not voting for the resolution,” said one executive. “It actually made people vote in favour, for sure.”

Here, The Athletic explains what happened and what it means — for Newcastle and beyond…

What was said?

“Charnley read a statement from Newcastle saying the new rules would be unlawful, discriminatory and prejudicial,” said a well-placed source. “But incredibly, the statement also said that the new rules would open up the Premier League, the other clubs and directors of other clubs to be liable for that.”

Several club executives, speaking anonymously to The Athletic, criticised Newcastle’s new owners — a representative of Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns 80 per cent of the club, or 10 per cent shareholders PCP Capital Partners and the Reuben brothers — for not showing up to the meeting and sending Charnley instead.

“They just didn’t turn up, except for Lee who sat there and read a statement like he was at a German wedding,” a source said.

“Poor old Lee, put in an impossible position like a puppet,” said another. “Absolutely unbelievable.”

There was disbelief that the club’s new buyers didn’t attend the meeting, be it in person like around 80 per cent of attendees or via Zoom, but there was widespread sympathy for Charnley.

“We all like Lee,” a well-placed figure reflected. “He’s Mike Ashley’s man and sending your outgoing CEO to make legal threats to the rest of the league is not great.

“If I’d been advising Newcastle, I’d have told them, ‘Vote for this and then wait and see what comes back… make the rules evolve in a way you want further down the line’, but don’t threaten people.”

“They (Newcastle’s new owners) just needed to turn up to the meeting, sit down and talk it through,” said another executive. “There was no need for all of this.”

Amanda Staveley Newcastle
Executives were surprised to see Newcastle’s new owners, such as Amanda Staveley, were not at the meeting (Photo: Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)
Although Parish led calls for the vote to be held, it is understood Arsenal, Tottenham, Everton and Aston Villa were also vehemently in favour of putting a temporary ban on related-party sponsorships in place.

“Everybody is so emotional about it,” an executive said. “(Alan Pace) at Burnley is up in arms. He’s so agitated it’s been allowed to happen.”

Have Newcastle been targeted by rival clubs?

This is certainly how it looks, especially as they are now backed by one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds and are still in the relegation zone, but club executives will point to the fact that new rules have been a long time coming.

One source, defending Newcastle, admitted that fresh regulations should have already been put in place as it now looks like a deliberate witch hunt to prevent the north-east club from replicating the success Manchester City have achieved over the past decade.

“You bring Newcastle to the table and say, ‘Let’s look at the rules together’,” the Premier League executive explained. “The rule amendments are right, but there’s no need to make it an anti-Newcastle statement.”

They also referred, by way of example, to USM Holdings, the company owned by Everton owner Farhad Moshiri’s business partner Alisher Usmanov, agreeing a reported £12 million-a-year deal re-name Finch Farm — Everton’s training ground — to USM Finch Farm. The firm has also concluded a £30 million deal to gain an exclusive option of sponsoring the club’s new stadium, even though it is still under construction.

Everton, stadium
Everton have secured planning permission for a new stadium at Liverpool’s Bramley-Moore Dock (Photo: Everton Football Club)
Manchester City, who are backed by the Abu Dhabi United Group, remained neutral throughout the meeting, and Chelsea and Liverpool stayed relatively silent.

It is understood that Liverpool fully support the proposals, even if they are not the ones driving them, but have become more careful about what they say at Premier League meetings after being burned before.

Manchester United, like Liverpool, are not leading the calls for change but did vote in favour of new regulations being put in place.

Newcastle’s hierarchy were involved in talks of their own on Monday, with Staveley travelling down to London to meet other members of the new board. This was planned already and not a reaction to the outcome of the Premier League meeting. However, it is understood Staveley was up until the early hours of Tuesday morning digesting what happened.

What happens next?

The Premier League are setting up a working group, which will be populated by representatives from clubs who put themselves forward, to create long-lasting measures. The expectation is that they will report back in three weeks to discuss the solution they have come up with.

One executive on the call praised Jon Varney, Brentford’s chief executive, who is believed to have suggested several intelligent proposals about what can be done. Manchester United’s Richard Arnold is also being viewed as someone incredibly knowledgeable about commercial deals, although it was the club’s head of legal who attended on Monday.

“Jon is commercially savvy,” the source said. “Rather than getting carried away with the politics, he actually understands commercial contracts.

“In reality, most of us don’t know the ins and outs of what we can and can’t do commercially as it’s not our job. But there a few people like Richard Arnold and Jon Varney who do know because it’s their job and they haven’t had to worry about the football side of the club.”

How will this impact Newcastle and the other clubs in the future?

There are relatively few clubs in the Premier League that rely on major related-party contracts, which is why Newcastle’s confrontational letter claimed that rules forbidding or restricting deals of that nature would be discriminatory. Newcastle feel that new regulations are specifically targeting a very small group of clubs and owners.

Manchester City have been accused of earning heavily from related-party deals in the past. Reflecting on their abstention, one director told The Athletic: “It’s not that City will be massively affected immediately. They just don’t like the direction of travel.”

For now, the 18 clubs voting in favour has imposed a three-week moratorium on related-party sponsorship — a direct result of the fear that Newcastle would try to act quickly by arranging and announcing major new sponsors before all loopholes were closed. A draft version of new rules controlling related parties should be completed by the end of that three-week period, ready for debate and amendments.

Manchester City
Manchester City play at the City of Manchester Stadium, known as the Etihad under sponsorship terms (Photo: Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
It was a warning, as a well-placed executive put it, that Newcastle’s owners “can’t just waltz in and do what City did” after the club was taken over in 2008. The view of the 18 clubs is that almost all of their own commercial revenue is generated through conventional means. They argue that a system whereby owners can use related parties to secure vastly inflated and unrealistic income is unfair and in need of reform.

The aim is to establish regulations that not only limit related-party contracts but also require them to be approved by the Premier League before they are finalised, rather than fought over retrospectively. Clubs would be forbidden from taking the money and then arguing about it later.

Close attention would be paid to market value and inflated deals would be blocked. Industry sources estimate that Newcastle’s shirt deal is worth in the region of £5 million annually. A related company trying to pay three or four times as much would be forced to explain how and why that valuation had been reached — and most likely see the agreement rejected.

Premier League sources have told The Athletic that the rules will be broad and wide-reaching. They could cover any of the firms that the PIF, for example, has invested in — even the likes of Disney.

“If Disney offers £4 million a year to sponsor the shirt, no one’s going to complain,” said one. “It’s a fair deal. But if they offer £20 million, they could well be classed as a related party — simply because it’s not a realistic market value. That’s the point.

“I don’t think anyone seriously thinks Disney would do that but there might be other related companies, less well known, who could be used to pay well over the odds.”

What other consequences might there be?

There is a strong possibility that this saga will spell the end of Premier League chairman Gary Hoffman.

Some Premier League clubs were already concerned about his leadership before the Newcastle takeover. One director spoken to by The Athletic remarked that the Project Big Picture and European Super League fiascos “wouldn’t have happened under (former executive chairman Richard) Scudamore”. Many who sit in the Premier League’s fortnightly meetings share that view.

The Athletic has been told that the “final straw” for Hoffman was the Premier League announcing the Newcastle takeover to its member clubs via a curt email with little explanation. The clubs’ expectation was that they would at least have received a phone call outlining the reasons for the approval and the Premier League’s sudden change in stance. Again, that was Scudamore’s style.

Rival clubs were unhappy that it was made to look as if all 19 agreed with the takeover. In fact, they had not been consulted about it. The previous Premier League meeting did not even have the Saudi buyout of Newcastle as an agenda item. The first many of them knew about the sale going through was when they read about it in the media.

One director said he believed Hoffman would be ousted and the Premier League’s failure to warn clubs of Newcastle’s impending legal threat will not help his popularity or the strength of his position.

The clubs think the job of Premier League chairman should be one of the most coveted in the country — and that better leadership would allow Premier League chief executive Richard Masters to be more productive. Confidence in Masters appears to be intact.

Additional contributors: Adam Crafton and George Caulkin

(Top photo: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

What did you think

Burnley and Palace just fuck off !!

[johnny crossan]

Banned Roan back to promoting the "financial doping" agenda on the BBC Sport website quoting anti-Arab shill "Professor" Simon Chadwick:
"This [rule] is intended to make sure you focus on generating revenues, controlling your costs and that "financial doping" doesn't take place. In other words, when owners are ploughing money into the club and that skews competition." https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58920229
Hope the Saudis take on these lying cockroaches and their hosts in the courts, we should have done it long ago.

[PeterParker]

To be honest, I am happy this is happening.
Many of their fans were on the "train" against City, wanting for scouse to win the title in 18/19 and their piss poor display in the penultimate round of that season after previously beating us playing like in a final.

I want them to break the cartel and make it, but I am also happy for them to be in our shoes because is so easy from the outside and how "we are the boogeyman" when the media is talking shite.

[sheblue]

The Newcastle owners are making a bit of a mess of it. Talking about winning the PL in 5 years and all that bollocks, what they should be talking about is staying in the PL this season, and nothing more. That Amanda one, words fail me, naïve doesn't even come close.

[Mase]

The Newcastle owners are making a bit of a mess of it. Talking about winning the PL in 5 years and all that bollocks, what they should be talking about is staying in the PL this season, and nothing more. That Amanda one, words fail me, naïve doesn't even come close.

Wasn’t she previously dating Prince Andrew? I don’t think her judgement is the best.

[Dimples]

The Newcastle owners are making a bit of a mess of it. Talking about winning the PL in 5 years and all that bollocks, what they should be talking about is staying in the PL this season, and nothing more. That Amanda one, words fail me, naïve doesn't even come close.

Wasn’t she previously dating Prince Andrew? I don’t think her judgement is the best.

She was and it is easy to understand why Andrew was interested.

[zuricity]

The Newcastle owners are making a bit of a mess of it. Talking about winning the PL in 5 years and all that bollocks, what they should be talking about is staying in the PL this season, and nothing more. That Amanda one, words fail me, naïve doesn't even come close.

Wasn’t she previously dating Prince Andrew? I don’t think her judgement is the best.

She ? she ? that's a man ! and as i write Atalanta go into a well deserved lead.

[Mase]

The Newcastle owners are making a bit of a mess of it. Talking about winning the PL in 5 years and all that bollocks, what they should be talking about is staying in the PL this season, and nothing more. That Amanda one, words fail me, naïve doesn't even come close.

Wasn’t she previously dating Prince Andrew? I don’t think her judgement is the best.

She was and it is easy to understand why Andrew was interested.

She was 13 at the time?

[zuricity]

The Newcastle owners are making a bit of a mess of it. Talking about winning the PL in 5 years and all that bollocks, what they should be talking about is staying in the PL this season, and nothing more. That Amanda one, words fail me, naïve doesn't even come close.

Wasn’t she previously dating Prince Andrew? I don’t think her judgement is the best.

She was and it is easy to understand why Andrew was interested.

She was 13 at the time?

He Mase, he.

[Mase]

He Mase, he.

[john@staustell]

Banned Roan back to promoting the "financial doping" agenda on the BBC Sport website quoting anti-Arab shill "Professor" Simon Chadwick:
"This [rule] is intended to make sure you focus on generating revenues, controlling your costs and that "financial doping" doesn't take place. In other words, when owners are ploughing money into the club and that skews competition." https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58920229
Hope the Saudis take on these lying cockroaches and their hosts in the courts, we should have done it long ago.

Yes, always been my thoughts.

[Beefymcfc]

US ownership creaming off UK enterprises, not sport, they don’t see it like that.

[Dimples]

The Newcastle owners are making a bit of a mess of it. Talking about winning the PL in 5 years and all that bollocks, what they should be talking about is staying in the PL this season, and nothing more. That Amanda one, words fail me, naïve doesn't even come close.

Wasn’t she previously dating Prince Andrew? I don’t think her judgement is the best.

She was and it is easy to understand why Andrew was interested.

She was 13 at the time?

He Mase, he.

She is 13 years younger than him and her mother's maiden name is 'Raper'. I guess he got excited over that.

[Harry Dowd scored]

Good article by Martin Samuel - :

MARTIN SAMUEL: Why is Saudi money worse than cash from a bunch of white guys in America? Newcastle's owners are treated like crooks, but the Premier League's principled band don't mind rubbing along with autocratic regimes
Newcastle have received a lot of criticism since their £300m Saudi-led takeover
But Man United use their deal with Saudi Telecom as revenue stream in the past
Why is investment from Saudi Arabia worse than from white guys in America

Full article - :

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