Maybe Newcastle fans should lobby other teams / fans letting them know that they are just making up the numbers there is no point in supporting your team as the PL don't want you to succeed
Waste of time because all othe fans are delighted and relieved this failed and can't see past that.. Thats football.. If it was another club we would be the same.
So whilst I understand the PL not wanting to threaten their cartel of 6, there are some questions that remain far from answered: 1. Why have PIF not just gone 100% for the club? After all they could easily set everything up properly to pass and could afford Man U with pocket change. 2. Why have the Reuben Bros, given Jamie’s comments, not just gone in? Newcastle would represent around 1.5% of their total net worth and is easily affordable. 3. Why has Staveley not gone after the PL privately or legally? As Simon Jordan rightly suggests if their is clear demonstrable obfuscation then it’s a against the law as per something as basic as restriction of trade. 4. Why does the football club go hand in hand with regional investment? The reubens are spending £14m on Pilgrim Street and have other plans anyway. 5. Fans of Newcastle have campaigned and lobbied just to get the current owner to communicate to no avail - what are we supposed to do vs the combined weight of Lpool, Man U, City, etc, exactly? 6. it’s off but not off - why can’t an organisation of bottomless wealth not set up a separate investment vehicle for sports if they’re so serious about it and pass the test? Nothing is ever straightforward but there are some glaring questions that need looking into from the other side
Next year we should have a cartel watch warm glow thread for when other teams don’t read the script and accidentally beat one of the elite members. We can then revel in their misfortune.
Devils advocate mate, but, if you despise the cartel and everything it stands for, why do you want the club to be part of said cartel, which is what would happen.
There are many valid questions that should be answered from all parties, but probably won't. I'm not saying the PL are immune from criticism, far from it, but, I think there's been a lot of blowing smoke from Staveley/PIF.
See this is part of my realisation on football. We are praying for Saudis to invest, conveniently forgetting they DO have abhorrent human rights in the hope of seeing a Toon trophy. My personal realisation is that success shouldn't come at any cost - but the juxtaposition is that you can't have success without selling your soul to some appalling regime or another. Even the money at Villa and Wolves is heavily caveated behind dodgy practices. Roman Abramovic has more than enough blood on his hands - look up early articles from Matthew Syed about it (he was banned from Sky because he spoke out about Roman's association to Putin - he was effectively a 'heavy' - and the land-theft that took place). So is that what football has become? Bankroll or be steamrollered? All the while the gleeful smiles of Sky and BT tell us on-repeat and ad infinitum that it's the "best league in the world" and the football on show - purely from the big 4/6 - is astonishing/amazing/breathtaking. I don't get it - football for me was tribal and it used to be that it didn't matter what anyone else did. as it was ingrained to ****ing hate with a passion anybody better than you. Yet we're now all supposed to stand in mutual admiration of Man City spending billions, or Liverpool's £300m wage bill, as if they're somehow doing something incredible? I just don't ****ing get it. I hate Man City - a bland, soul-less club cheating and getting away with it (ergo further cheating). I hate Liverpool, smug and all this "years of hurt" ****, with a wage bill that would make the NHS blush. I hate Man Utd for all its arrogance and 'biggest club' garbage. I hate Chelsea for their oligarch bankrolling the club with blood money. And so on to us. If we did get Saudi money and spent £250m on players, there'd be something unpleasant about it. Would be nice to see Allegri's Toon smash the **** out of Man City in the "Abu Derby", but it wouldn't fill me with the excitement I felt when Shearer signed, or when Cole/Beardsley terrorised teams, or when Sir Les was the number 9, and so on. Basically, this waffling post is just to say that football is a shell and the romance in it is dead. I've also realised that the final bit of romance, the FA Cup, was killed when the prize became Europa League - it now means too much to big clubs, with the gulf so vast nobody is going to ever cause an upset for the biggest 4-6 clubs ever again. So what's the point of any of it? You can't win trophies, you can't get to Europe. The prize is 17th, which is no prize at all. So whatever football has become, I've just outgrown it.
I hate it when two people are bickering and one says "surprised you're being like this, you're a good guy." Its such a fake pissy way to try and disarm an argument. Just be a man and have an argument, Jesus. Fyi luke edwards did it
Maybe so, but he's made Wraith look like a right tit. Telling him to disclose his sources. What a fool.
If I were MBS it’s so do two things; sponsor the PL for £100m a year and ensure a strap line under the logo reads... ‘is corrupt’. Sponsor the Championship for £5bn a season to **** the PL off and it will prompt a race to the bottom where clubs WANT to get relegated away from the cartel.
