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It was nothing, I just copied it from the bbc website

And Sunderland too tbf.

So if that’s per year for a 25 man squad they’d need to average £100k per year, they’re absolutely fucked . At least in future Methven’s plans of breaking the attendance record by handing out tens of thousands of free tickets, and pumping in 90’s Ibiza tunes won’t hurt them as much.

The reality also is that any such cunt will still exist regardless of the ownership relationship with any football club. Owning the club just gives an indication of something that they may spend some of their money on. In the case of the existing cunt there is pretty much no reason, excepting for maintaining premier league status, that any noteable amount of money will be spent on the club, the academy or the area in general. There is however good reason to suspect that the other cunt(s) will have motivation (regardless of how sinister) to spend money on all three. The great thing is that even if they did buy the club and spend money there's not a single reason why you would have to change your previously decided mind about the level of their cunt status. They're entirely mutually exclusive.

Just look at Bill Gates. He cooked up Covid-19 in a lab in Wuhan.

Every Premier League winning club of the last 10 years, including Leicester, has been funded by businesses with questionable, at best, and downright immoral, in truth, practices. If your concern is having a “clean” club, follow another sport- I hear quoits is fairly wholesome.

What’s £581 divided by 25? Asking for a hairy friend.…

I don't think ashley has caused the death of any old ladies

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.

I hope Masters is fucking pissing his knickers the bent cunt

Sleep tight, Masters

no its not you simpering cunt.

A bit like the Victorian days of football where a club owner would give a player a job to supplement their pay. So if you see Will Grigg working at the funfair at South Shields next season don't be too surprised.

Every match, outside of the ground a group of people collect donations, cash & material, for the largest foodbank in the UK. If dodgy foreign investment was to alleviate some of the issues effecting people I don’t think I would be too arsed. Its easy for liberal journalists to talk shite when they know fuck all about the region but we really needed that investment & job creation.

Just a shame that Rodwell is no longer on their books.

Aren't Wolves and Southampton majority owned by Chinese investors? There's most likely very little difference in the type of control Xi Jinping has over business in China than the Saudi Prince has over business in Saudi. If I had to choose I'd say Xi Jinping has him beat. Muslim concentration camps, the constant murder of his citizens in general for any sort of dissent, Tibet, Taiwan, the constant attempts at expansion, the constant theft of intellectual property, their lies at the beginning of covid, the fact that he has much more global power to cause havoc etc.

Hey, it's something to do between visits to the shed.

I actually think fans would’ve found it easier to accept if there was a judgment based on things like human rights issues. But they weren’t applied to any of the other clubs’ owners and weren’t applied in this case. It’s the fact the league just refused to do anything to protect the interests of the top clubs to keep it a closed shop. And I’d take the Saudis’ money, for the club and for the city/wider region. The latter needs it even more than the former. Like Tom I see where you’re coming from though. I’m also a bit like Gloom in that it would be good for my kids to support something other than the husk of a club we have at present

J69 has already offered him 50 quid for them.

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.

Yeh that’s absolutely fair, I respect that view and I’ve held it myself for periods of time. I just want a football team to support I suppose. Supporting Newcastle at the moment feels like....absolutely nothing. I. Feel. NOTHING

Totally agree, to be honest I dont want Gareth Bale on £640,000 a week in a black and white shirt, i think its outrageous, natural growth with sustainable investment and I'm happy just get rid of Sports Direct United.

That funfair btw. Charv central

It’ll be especially impressive to see how Swamp Rat CEO manages to pass Newcastle on the way up now. His negotiation skills must be absolutely amazing if he is going to be able to convince 4 PL players to come and play for under £2k a week.

Well the choice is either get down in the trough and the dirt given where the majority of investment is coming, or fade into obscurity. Maybe you might get very lucky and get a John Henry who seems relatively clean for a billionaire, but more than likely you'll get Middle Eastern, Chinese, Russian etc investment. For all of the US's faults billionaires seem relatively autonomous, indeed the influence appears to go the other way a lot of the time.

There isn't a clear difference as you put it. PIF are an investment fund that act of behalf of the Prince and the Saudi state. He likely cares very little for all the details into what they are investing in as long as it enriches him and the Saudi state. Every billionaire in China is entirely beholden to Xi and his government, and indeed only get to their positions by being loyal acolytes. Why are PIF different to the billionaires in China? If there is a tangible difference it isn't clear.

Yes, but that is the issue I have, it’s really easy to say that now that it isn’t happening. None of us were overly keen on MBS, but the thought of signing the big name players, the investment in the club and area, meant that we were willing to live with it even if we weren’t completely ok with it.

Football is so well audited these days that everything comes out of the woodwork eventually. Plus Donald’s custodianship of the club has been spiralling out of control for a while, this will be an excuse to impose some financial stability. In addition it puts Mr Rich Energy’s apparent plan in the bin where it belongs

Grigg was on £1.5m a year at Wigan, I cant see him having left for a paycut.

Oh dear

Listened to that new old Neil Young album last night and it’s solid. “White Line” is on par with anything from his classic albums. Also started listening to Dylan’s new album This post brought to you by yer da.

I don’t know why people aren’t more excited! Next season if we get off to a good start we can finish lower mid table & there’s always the threat of relegation should our form dip and then we can do the same the season after. And the season after that etc etc

One of those comebacks that takes down both parties. A kamikaze comeback.

No one is going to buy us knowing that they could face potential action for doing so that could lead to the club being thrown out of the league.

Fuck that, I want the stupid money.

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.

Best comment I read about the fella was that he looked like a run down council estate Gandalf

Meanwhile the government & their families were doing whatever they wanted and continue to do so.

Oh yes This is a man with £500 in the bank. Mike Ashley is a cunt but tends to have more than that in his pockets.

Can’t wear a mask as it slows down the nugget consumption rate.

Well he can't seeing as she isn't old enough.

Dear Premier League, Remember that time when a beach ball was our best on ground? You must really be missing that. Your sister league partner for life, Sunderland AFC (on the river where they used to build the boats) FTM

I’m starting to think we should take a leaf of out the mackems book and BOYCOUTT the premier league. and also the championship

Probably like that most days tbf

Just imagine the reaction if Bridget participated. Her office would be like Day of the dead with angry mackem zombies

A linesman and a Tory MP. Mr Popular north of the border I bet

I agree. Also betting on our relegation might provoke some modest interest in the results. Not that it would make me want to watch the football, which I expect will involve regular batterings by anyone half decent.