Newcastle United – News Roundup – 18 July 2009
Posted on July 18th, 2009 | 37 Comments |
“Our people have been in London all week working with lawyers and attorneys.
“And we have made them a realistic offer.
“We have been pushing ahead and, make no doubt about it, the money is in place – we are for real.
“We initially made a tentative bid to begin with, and discussions then took place. We were told to come back, and that’s what we have done.
“There has been a formal offer and we want to get things done and dusted as quickly as possible.”
If you’re interested you can read about The Profitable Group’s history on their web site, although the only thing on their site relating to Newcastle United is from the 10th June where they confirm their initial interest in buying the club.
I’m presuming it’s the Strategic Sports Investment arm of the Profitable Group that’s actually fronting this interest in Newcastle, although it’s hard to work out from their clunky web site exactly how the club would fit into their portfolio. Maybe they want us for PR purposes, simply to promote their name and services, or maybe they see a potential profit in getting us promoted and selling the club on. I don’t know but it’s always worth trying to figure out what’s in it for them.
Also from The Chronicle, Jose Enrique reports that, despite the players’ fury at the current club situation, they intend to ‘give their all’ in the pre-season games. He says:
“It is tough for everybody.
“But as players we will continue to give our all in games – we have to because it is what we are paid to do.
“We did that at Shamrock Rovers last week and it is what we will do against Darlington in our next game.”
The Shields Gazette reports that Bassong may be playing in today’s Darlington match and that fellow returned internationals Geremi, Jonas and Xisco are also likely to get a game as Hughton intends to rotate the squad over the next two games to give everyone some pitch time.
The Sun are reporting that Hull are prepared to offer us £3m over 3 years for Joey Barton if we chip in £20,000 a week towards his wages.
Where would we be without an article from The Guardian’s Louise Taylor? This time she answers ‘Ten Questions To Help Clear The Fog Over Tyneside‘ for us. To be fair to Ms Taylor it’s actually a reasonable article, by which I mean she doesn’t appear to say anything inflammatory for once. In her answer to the question ‘Do The Fans Make It Difficult?’, she says:
“According to popular stereotype, Toon Army foot soldiers suffer badly from Messiah Complexes, demand an absurdly entertaining, yet winning, brand of football and decline to offer their heroes space or privacy in the city’s ‘goldfish bowl’. This is largely, often laughably, false.”
Good on you Louise. We’ll make a Geordie of you yet!
NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen
I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10).
Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.
Morning Hugh
I’m not sure what you make of the Profitable Group’s alleged bid? From the links Worky has posted they certainly don’t sound like potential reputable owners – a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. Also if they have made a ‘realistic bid’ ie some derisory amount and have signed non disclosure agreements why would they not abide by them. They certainly appear very unprofessional which ever way you look at them with that gob on legs Steve McMahon shouting his mouth off every five minutes. Would this be a taste of things to come if by some miracle they managed to pull off buying the club? I know things are dire at the moment but I really don’t see them as being any better than what we have already in fact they appear a worse option.
Regarding the Louise Taylor piece, it seemed pretty balanced imo.