This - considering it takes a minimum of 6 weeks to sell a £80,000 house then a business for £300,000,000 may take a tad bit longer
I work as an estate agent, got a 900K house going through for over 6 months now let alone 6 weeks - problems with the planning regs for an extension. As Jonjo says, these things take time and solicitors are exceptionally slow and thorough as its them who bare the brunt if their clients end up with a legal problem. Imagine the solicitor who failed to flag the £100m+ of debt associated with the club when Ashley purchased it now works/eats at a soup kitchen.
Bear in mind if the UK lawyer of Ashley calls or emails at 2pm, the Middle East is already closed. You can add day after day after day just because of the time lag. And the Middle East is notoriously lax. My last company - Dubai based - was incredibly fluffy with what we would consider vital processes such as invoicing, shipping, clearing debt, etc. They'd take days to do things that the Western World would be doing within an hour, I am not exaggerating! I have a suspicion that the UK/Ashley side was geared up to announce before the Weds match with Everton. That's why all this buzz started to appear, I honestly think this side thought it was all done. Then it passed 2pm, nobody was available, things still aren't signed, etc. Now what I would say works for us is the Middle East doesn't do Xmas, they work straight through. However, after year end there's a MASSIVE amount of holidays start to get taken. I have a feeling it'll be done before the Man City game, probably announced formally on that day to make a real spectacle of it - and what better team to do it against than Saudi's big rivals, the UAE. Saudi's would love nothing better than to say "welcome to OUR club" and do it in real showy fashion. The Middle East does like a bit of prestige about proceedings - look at all the "Royal visits" at City in and around the takeover, they love the Western press coverage.
I can't make up my mind on this, obviously the sooner the news comes out the better for fans but then other teams will know we have money to spend if the takeover is confirmed. If I was involved it WOULD be finalized by now and just be being kept exceptionally quiet with a completion date of 2nd February 2018, we'd sign a few loan players early doors with decent options to buy and then in the last week of the window go all out to get 2/3 big names through the door, keeping it out of the press, and then and only then announce the take over. But that's just me I''m sure Ashley will be running around shouting it from the rooftops when he's finally "exchanged" on the deal.
Hmm, from personal experience - and anyone else can say different - the Middle East will want to flaunt. And I think we should welcome it. Why? Because at the moment we look like a fcking disaster. It's not about other clubs fleecing us, it's about avoiding a repeat of the Tammy Abraham and Willy Caballero situation where we won't pay reasonable money and subsequently look like a dead club. Players are online just as much, they can read papers, they can gauge opinion. Will they want to come to an Ashley owned club? I know I wouldn't. No, I think we should announce in grandiose, OTT fashion and make players want to be part of it. Players who are warming benches at bigger clubs could look at us and think "holy crap, if I go there now and it works out, I could make a fortune". The likes of Shaw, Batshuayi, Mkhitaryan, Reina, Carvalho all suddenly become options we could take on. Imagine those five turning up?! Even just for loans with a view to move....holy crappola, what a prospect. Part of the biggest issue with football is not the money itself, but the coverage. We liken their earnings to our own and think "how fcking dare they". It's really got nothing to do with us what a club does with its' money as long as there's affordability and no risk to the clubs' future.
Nah he doesn't - the powers that be knows the average IQ of a footballer and ones that are in our club are going to be pretty low!
Is it me, or do we only seem to hear more about this take over when we are about to have a home game ?? last 2 home games lots of talk coming out from the media etc since then not a lot is all the talk to appease home support ?
Occam's razor, mate. Chill. Ashley's got neither the time nor inclination to think so deviously about NUFC, a club I maintain he doesn't own anymore.
Hmm. It's almost like there will be no sale of the club, Ashley will defend his further non-investment by claiming he was negotiating the sale of the club, we'll all continue talking about the possible sale of the club and meanwhile Newcastle United get relegated and we've already sold all our best players. (yes, both of them) Just a thought.
