In an interview with AP a few weeks back, he was asked in MA was giving him more money to spend due to sportsdirect.com £200million profits. AP responded "No, it is an entirely different company to NUFC". I understand that. However, NUFC are currently being branded from head to toe in sports direct promotions - stadium name, roof, etc etc. If we are an entirely different company, why are we not receiving an equivalent payment for the sponsorship? Only mention this due to the 'Etihad Stadium' debacle. Obviously I am not expecting additional revenue to that extent, but surely MA should pay the going rate for the privilege? I am very surprised that the EPL apparently have no scrutiny committee in place to check on the ethical governance of clubs. Fair play MA passed the initial 'fit and proper person' check, but I strongly feel that he is currently running the club an entity entirely for his own gain. There should be an appeal system built into the FA which allows fans to ask for a service like this. Sorry for the rambling message...
Not sure. I think since Ashley owns the club out right, he can stick what he wants on SJP. Just be glad the roof of the east stand isnt covered with a giant picture of Ashley's face
I totally agree, and in a perfect world, I am sure we would be able to do that. But asking a group of money grabbing bastards to tell off another money grabbing bastard just won't happen. I am confused about the whole situation, no Newcastle fan can tell you what on earth is going on and why he is clearly punishing the fans. I don't have it in me to inflict that much pain on so many people. I spend so much on NUFC and get shat on in the process.
His own 'gain' has been an outlay of £250 million. Hardly profitable is it? As for the branding having a direct influence on Sports Directs profits is laughable as spending £250 million over the time scale of his tenure at NUFC on marketing and promotions for Sports Direct would return far more. We have no clear breakdown view on the clubs finances in terms of sponsorship and ad hoc revenue so we don't know if any money is in fact being given to the club for the SD branding.
But this £250m has surely been clawed back to a certain extent over the past 5 years through player sales, prize money, parachute payments, sponsorship, TV money, gate receipts, season tickets and catering. I understand that our wages take a certain percentage of this but surely there is only so long we can trot out the £250m arguement, particularly as it was his own fault for not even bothering to perform due dilligence.
OT - you could argue that there has been a massive personal gain to him by owning NUFC. The massive amount of free branding he has been slapping everywhere has surely had a direct impact on the success of sports direct. Speculatively you could say that perhaps there has been a payment for the sponsorship, but again it is another case of us following the club like sheep whilst the shepherd casually screws us over.
If MA wanted to really develop NUFC he would divert substantial funds from sportsdirect into NUFC in the form of an advertising expense. He may well be doing this, as OT says, we just don't know the figures. However, I suspect that he will put as little money into the club as possible. He owns the club so he can pretty much put what he likes up in the stadium. Just a thought, if he wanted to reclaim a large part of the interest free loan that he gave the club, could he not arrange a huge sponsorship deal between sportsdirect and NUFC and then reclaim the money from this income?
Over 5 years the club has never made a profit as it's operating costs far exceeded it's ability to generate revenue. The players wages at one point took up over 70% of the clubs generated revenue. That's just the players wages. Take into account back room staff, stadium maintenance, PR, marketing, HR, training centre costs etc as well as basic utility costs for water, electricity and other such items and you'll see why a losses of up to £20 million were recorded year on year. This doesn't even include the financial costs of bank loans and overdrafts nor the costs of auditing etc which are not cheap.
he's still massively out of pocket, we were running at a(n average) defecit of 15mil (pre tax) for the four years before we got relegated, and i cant imagine it was that much better in the Championship (probably worse), so after getting all that as income, the club was still losing money. The player sales would mean we just about break even (probably still losing money) overall, but that stll leaves his initial investment of £250mil unfortunately. here's a very long (and a bit of an old) article about it if you want to read more.
Massive personal gains? How? Where? When? We are talking about a quarter of a BILLION pounds the club has cost him personally. If you think that having a logo on a stadium over the last 2/3 years has helped generate massively towards his other company turning over large enough profit to allow him to issue a £200 million profit share then I can only laugh. Think about whenever Mike is mentioned in the press in relation to NUFC. Is it EVER positive? "NUFC chairman Mike Ashley, owner of Sports Direct..." It's usually followed by a diatribe of how bad the club is run or how fed up the fans/players are with him. It's not a positive PR message at all for him or Sports Direct. £250 million spent on SD for the sole purpose of enhancing profits would have been far more beneficial and lucrative. Having a sign on a stadium has had little impact on SD profits.
Putting it bluntly, he can do as ****ing pleases because he owns both companies. Yes he is taking a bit of free advertising to help another of his companies. Would you do likewise? Of course you would, particularly if your foray into the world of football had left you seriously out of pocket due to some poor decision making. The sports direct stuff doesn't bother me, I'd do the same. Its like the renaming, who cares, we'd all still call it St James so what does it matter?
Its the fact that we just get treated like **** in the process. I don't have it in me to punish Hundreds of Thousands of fans, possibly millions, I'm not that ****ing evil.
But OT, Ashley's ownership of NUFC HAS had a positive effect on sportsdirect's profitability................................many mackems are refusing to shoplift at his stores because they are so pleased with what he is doing at our club!!
Oh aye thats the **** side of it but there is very little can be done about that. He is a ruthless fecker and doesn't give a damn how he goes about getting his money back. I'm not defending him, just think this is the way guys who have as much money as him operate and there is little to gained by dwelling on it. Well accept maybe a bucket load of prozac to ease a nasty case of depression!
Thats actually a really good idea i cant believe i/he/anyone didnt think of that cos it wouldn't cost him anything either as the money will go from himself to himself; just like putting money from one account to another and we'd still be in uefa rules even if the sponsorship fee was for the entire interest-free loan of 110m.
