It's gunna be a funny day when Brb or Tobes comes along and locks this thread for the bantz. I reckon they'll be some proper tears when that happens.
'we want to buy the league, why aren't you all happy for us?' Soft Geordie ****s got too used to wallowing in their own pity when Ashley were bumming them all
you spent most of the evening moaning that Saudi money was propping up all of UK apart from Newcastle gonna be some Saudi cash propping up the clubs you are looking to buy from.
please log in to view this image ROD LIDDLE Don’t blame Newcastle: the entire game is built on dirty cash and blood money Rod Liddle Sunday October 10 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times Share Save This article is the subject of a legal complaint from Roman Abramovich They were going berserk outside St James’ Park on Thursday night. To look at the pissed-up, cheering crowd, you’d have thought Newcastle United had just won their first meaningful trophy in 52 years — but, no, they were merely celebrating the fact that the club had just been taken over by Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of that fun-lovin’, go-ahead democracy Saudi Arabia. Or “Wor Mohammed” as he will henceforth be known. Halal the lads! They are an excitable and changeable bunch, Newcastle fans, and ol’ Mohammed will soon become aware of that troublesome fact. It is rare for a season to start without 50,000 Geordies cheering their team to the rafters — and equally rare for a season to end without the cameras panning to some middle-aged bloke stripped to the waist and with a gut the size of the Kielder forest blubbing his eyes out because Newcastle have just been relegated. Again. They are a spectacularly unsuccessful club, given their massive support. please log in to view this image IN YOUR INBOX Comment and Opinion Wit and wisdom from our award-winning stable of columnists and guest writers, including Caitlin Moran, Matthew Parris, Rod Liddle and Dominic Lawson. Sign up now But Mo ought to bear in mind that the supporters are part of the problem. All football fans are deluded, me included. But it is perhaps fair to say that Newcastle fans are more deluded than most. No owner or manager has been quite good enough for them, and they are disposed to howl for dismissals the minute they’ve been stuffed at home by Burnley. They believe they should be forever contesting the Champions League final against Juventus and become a tad impatient when this somehow fails to materialise. St James’ Park: the theatre of perpetually shafted dreams. The fans are delighted that the previous owner, Mike Ashley — whom they loathed — has gone. He kept them afloat, but that wasn’t enough. Their manager, Steve Bruce — a palpably decent man and a good coach — will surely soon be gone. He kept them in the top division, but they loathed him too because that wasn’t enough either. ADVERTISEMENT Their delight at the £305 million Saudi takeover, via the prince’s Public Investment Fund, is not remotely tempered by the fact that the prince is an authoritarian thug straight out of the Middle Ages, a man who presides over the murder, torture and repression of his opponents and has recently launched a crackdown against Saudi women who, ludicrously, have started demanding one or two rights. Newcastle fans couldn’t care less. They’d have been cheering Pol Pot if he had a few bob to spend. But then, in fairness, the same goes for the Premier League, which happily approved the takeover despite complaints from Keir Starmer and indeed the widow of Jamal Khashoggi, whom Mo had brutally done away with. The football authorities apply a “fit and proper” test to prospective club owners. But by “fit and proper” all they mean is that the owner has to have lots of money in the bank. Under the Premier League’s interpretation of the phrase, Al Capone, Benito Mussolini and Kim Jong-un would all have been cleared to own Newcastle. This is why I have some sympathy with those jubilant Toon fans. Increasingly our top clubs are run by criminals, third world despots and the corrupt associates of third world despots. Why should Newcastle be any different? The Premier League was perfectly happy to allow the dubious former prime minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, to own Manchester City; he was later convicted of corruption. City were then taken over by Sheikh Mansour — another totalitarian bigwig from a desert satrapy, in this case the United Arab Emirates. Nor did the authorities have much of a problem with allowing the Italian Massimo Cellino to buy Leeds United, even though he was a convicted criminal and had been described by a court as a man with “marked criminal tendencies ... capable of using every kind of deception to achieve his ends”. Roman Abramovich at Chelsea? Accused of money-laundering (which he denies). Carson Yeung, once at Birmingham City? A convicted criminal with suspected links to Chinese gangsters. Neither the authorities nor the fans care about the provenance of these people’s money. That’s because in the main the only people who want to buy football clubs are people like that, and bona fide lunatics. And money from deeply dubious individuals and downright criminal tyrants has enabled the Premier League to become extraordinarily successful. So good luck, you Geordies. I hope it works out for you. I also hope that one day we broaden that description of what is “fit and proper”. But, until then, why should Newcastle care — given all that has gone before, and that the international footballing authorities thought the slave state of Qatar was a great choice for the next World Cup? Don't always agree with Liddle, but when you consider this (and the fact that we, Uniturd and Arse are owned by Americans - those who wiped out a family in Kabul with a drone strike last August), it's all getting a bit faux outrage at the Saudis, IMO. Be honest - they won the lottery, and some are pig sick with envy,
