Ashley's To Sell Newcastle

[llamafarmer]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/newcastle_united/7615618.stm

Some pretty emotive stuff in his statement

"I paid £134m out of my own pocket for the club," said Ashley.
"I then poured another £110 million into the club not to pay off the debt but just to reduce it. The club is still in debt.

"Even worse than that, the club still owes millions of pounds in transfer fees. I shall be paying out many more millions over the coming year to pay for players bought by the club before I arrived."

He added: "I have put Newcastle on a sound financial footing. It is reducing its debt. It is spending within itself. It is recruiting exciting new players and bringing in players for the future."You want me out. That is what I am now trying to do but it won't happen overnight and it may not happen at all if a buyer does not come in.

"You don't need to demonstrate against me again because I have got the message."

I almost feel sorry for the bloke....

 

[SpurSince57]

I don't. It seems he gave the finances only the most cursory going-over before he bought the club, so he's only got himself to blame. It was obvious to everyone who follows football that Newcastle had been living way beyond its means for years. Why wasn't it obvious to Ashley?

 

[danielneeds]

Maybe this statement will wake up some Newcastle fans who have been living back in 1996 for years...

 

[Bill_Oddie]

Sounds eerily like the situation at Brighton a few years ago - just with bigger bucks.

'Fans' can be fucking moronic pricks sometimes. Get a bloke who loves the club, spends a shitload of cash and plans to spend a shitload more - when it becomes viable to do so - and brings stability where there used to be chaos... but because the fans don't see senseless spending and have impossibly high expectations, this is the board's fault. :roll:

I'm not a fan of Ashley, and SS57 is right when he deserves little sympathy but as someone whose Dad (a season ticket holder for 17 years) also used to stand with the fans at his club (with me) and who was eventually driven from the boardroom, despite his colleague, the owner, pumping millions into Brighton, I do know whereof I speak.

Perhaps those unsympathetic to Ashley today would change their view if told they can't attend Spurs matches because despite spending a quarter of a billion pounds (or even 25 million as with Brighton) on a failing business, the fans will sign song about fucking their wife, want to assault them, congregate outside their house at 7am on a Sunday morning hurling abuse at neighbours, jump on their car, spitting, and leave death threats on their answer phone saying they want to burn down your house while they slept?

Puts our distaste for Levy not buying Andrei Arshavin into perspective, eh?

 

[llamafarmer]

I don't know why the title says "Ashley's" it should just be "Ashley" - I should pay more attention to what I'm typing :lol:

 

[Bill_Oddie]

Well, it could be short for 'Ashley is...' That would make it okay. Odd but okay.

 

[SpurSince57]

I don't recall him making plain to the fans at the outset the extent of the mess Shepherd had left—not this plain, anyway. If he had, it might have been different. Maybe not, though—they seem to have been living in a little fantasy world up there.

And really, not only did he sign up Wise as DOF (didn't he have any idea how unpopular he was?), a questionable decision in itself, we then had an object lesson in how not to implement the system. All very well saying they've signed these players, but if they're not only players the manager didn't want, but the manager didn't even know they'd been signed (as seems to have been the case), it's all going to end in tears. Shades of Pleaty, Glenn and Keano.

 

[Shanks]

I just think its a shame that we are not playing them any time soon!

 

[spurdownunder]

Next Wednesday not soon enough?

 

[Kendall]

I feel a little sorry for the guy reading the statement, Newcastle was clearly horribly run before he came in (Dyer on £90k pw, what?) and he's trying to turn it around slowly, but Newcastle fans want to be up there as they were before, but these days it's just not as easy as it once was. In the past you could make 2 good signings and you could be up there, these days it takes a whole new team and a number of years.

 

[Kendall]

I just think its a shame that we are not playing them any time soon!

I'm sure we said that last year when Keegan was without a win since his return and they were playing like a sack of shit. We all remember what happened then!

 

[Shanks]

Ha, yeah I forgot about the carling cup!

Although I'd rather it was a league game..

 

[spurdownunder]

Watch them pull a rabbit out the hat when we're there. Mugs.

 

[llamafarmer]

You know there's nobody else who can put the barcodes' season back on track the way we can :lol:

Ashley had the right ideas, he just went about it the wrong way and most of all with the wrong people. Bringing KK back suggests he was suckered into the whole Geordie daydream and Wise as Director of Football was just a very odd call - especially when he's trying to run things from London! Should have stuck with Sam Allardyce Mike!

I can just see some sheikh buying them up now and a huge spending spree in January. I wonder if the Geordies would still be so anti-outsiders if that did happen? :lol:

 

[Teofilo-Stevenson]

Maybe this statement will wake up some Newcastle fans who have been living back in 1996 for years...

No, according to Magpie fans they are the third or fourth biggest club in world football and they won't be happy until the rest of the world agrees with them :roll:

They won't be happy with mid-table in the prem and the occasional cup-run - they think their rightful place is at the very top table of world football - I don't ;-)

 

[Remora]

I realise there's been no small amount of threads about Newcastle, but with every passing day, the situation gets more and more ridiculous.

The current story is whether or not Shearer has been sacked/released from his position.

It's not really worth linking to any of the stories as there are many, all following suit.

Typical stories of the current trend regarding Newcastle.

Back and forth shambles.

In the past hour or two the stories have been that Shearer was let go because of his comments about the 'strange' structure and implementation of procedure that goes on at Newcastle, followed by a complete rebuttal and desperate explanation by the club that beloved-all-time-top-goalscorer-with-a-complimentary-corporate-box Shearer is loved to pieces and how dare you etc.

Unfortunately Ashley and co. are an abstract example of how not to run a football club, and how not to handle public relations.

I think Levy and co. get stick from the fans for apparently glossing up our affairs and putting spin on things, but really, it's a far more attractive and stable world than the appalling breakdown in communications that seems to have been part of the problem at Newcastle. It's astonishing that it continues.

I think what might be a good idea is if all the Newcastle senior staff were to sit in one room every single day at 9am, try to guess among them who's in charge, then put a big, bright hat on that person so they can all remember. Nobody is to touch the hat. Possibly cover said person in sticky-notes. Maybe use something pictorial for Dennis to understand.
Man in hat then scribbles on a whiteboard under the title, 'Who does what, here.' Again, brightly coloured pictures for Dennis.

I'm not sure any of them have clearly defined any of their roles to each other, drawn distinct lines and made it clear where these lines cross.

The whole thing is an absolute shitfight.

I've got no sympathy for Ashley. None.

I don't condone any level of the alleged threatening behaviour of Newcastle fans toward him or his family or personal life, but really, how could Ashley stroll in and be so naive?!

If he was prepared to invest so much money, then he should've been prepared to invest an equal measure of responsibility. More so, even. Unfortunately, football as well as being big-business in modern times, is also a modern-day religion for some. Baying mobs, burning effigies and sheer outrage.
Wonderful.

He has no problem publicly flaunting his money-flinging, even if it's at a club in New York, but when it comes to being held accountable for the fiasco at Newcastle, he's crying foul about having invested in the first place(!?) Makes absolutely no sense to me.

Even Freddy Shepherd's told him to stop being a cry-baby.

I don't agree with fans ire being taken out on his family and with such bloodlust, there needs to be some perspective there (easily said, I guess), but how can one man be such a naive buffoon?!

 

[Bill_Oddie]

It strikes me that in everything he has done Mike Ashley is trying to be Daniel Levy.

Yet failing. Obviously.

 

[spurs]

Its more interesting following Newcastle off the pitch than Spurs on it at the moment.

What i don't understand is how Ashley is a seriously successful bussinessman yet he bought Newcastle without doing a proper finance check and admiited he was unaware of the debt. Very strange that he must have made thousands of excellent decisions in his life then invest 1/4 billion without doing any research!

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

Don't know if it's been mentioned anywhere but it seems Mike Ashley is a Spurs fan mg:


Wigan chairman Dave Whelan insists Newcastle counterpart Mike Ashley deserves the criticism he is receiving.
Ashley is attempting to sell Newcastle after Kevin Keegan's departure and a campaign against him by supporters. Whelan said: "The fans up there eat, breathe and live for one thing, and that is Newcastle United.

"Unless you put your whole heart into it, are a 100% Geordie and are backing them, they will give you some stick. He has got it, and he deserves it."

Whelan added: "I know Mike Ashley quite well as I was running JJB when he was with Sports Direct, and he is a bit unusual. "He is a very good retailer, but at managing a football club, no. Especially with him being a Tottenham supporter and then going up to Newcastle, a club that is a different kettle of fish to most in the land."

Clicky

 

[Wellspurs]

Don't know if it's been mentioned anywhere but it seems Mike Ashley is a Spurs fan mg:


Wigan chairman Dave Whelan insists Newcastle counterpart Mike Ashley deserves the criticism he is receiving.
Ashley is attempting to sell Newcastle after Kevin Keegan's departure and a campaign against him by supporters. Whelan said: "The fans up there eat, breathe and live for one thing, and that is Newcastle United.

"Unless you put your whole heart into it, are a 100% Geordie and are backing them, they will give you some stick. He has got it, and he deserves it."

Whelan added: "I know Mike Ashley quite well as I was running JJB when he was with Sports Direct, and he is a bit unusual. "He is a very good retailer, but at managing a football club, no. Especially with him being a Tottenham supporter and then going up to Newcastle, a club that is a different kettle of fish to most in the land."

Clicky

As mentioned before I heard Ashley say he has always hated Spurs?