Hello guys/girls.
I'm a Newcastle United fan, and more importantly I'm the fan who wrote that article that is being quoted on here. Let me start off by saying that I'm not ITK, I do not know of any information that indicates that Mike Ashley is to buy Sheffield Wednesday or any other club. The article I wrote is actually a column piece on a Newcastle fanzine website. 99.9% of the things written on there are opinion pieces or republications of news from official and non-official sources.
I wrote that column piece as a warning to football fans because I believe that Mike Ashley is not finished with football. I used Sheffield Wednesday as an example because in my opinion your club represents the most logical choice for Ashley to buy under my understanding of him.
The reason I used Sheffield Wednesday is based on the fact that I believe Ashley will want to buy another football club, but will want to do so cheaply, but with the prospect of getting into the Premier League. Your fanbase, your location (in proximity to Sports Directs HQ) and under my observations, your availability, alongside with the chance of getting into the Premier League as a Championship team is why I believe you would be the perfect candidate for him. I do not wish him upon you, nor is it my place to say if he would be better or worse than your current owner. Only you as fans of the club are able to determine that. I and my fellow Newcastle fans have realised in recent years that it is the fans of each club who knows best about what is good and bad about their clubs, even their owners.
In this thread I have read many things regarding Ashley, I'll try to go through everything as I can, and if I miss anything out, feel free to ask me anything you'd like and I'll answer it honestly as I can. For the sake of playing devils advocate I'll answer the questions under the basis that he is buying Sheffield Wednesday.
So the first claim is that Ashley will invest in your club in regards to the playing side.
I have to dispute that quite a bit. Under Ashley's tenure of Newcastle United never has he put his own money into the club for transfers. For the majority of the seasons he's owned us we have had a net profit from transfers. The times we have spent more have been offset by previous seasons where we have earned more from transfer sales. All finance documents relating the club under his ownership has not saw him put any money into the club, aside from a couple of instances which I'll explain later. None of those instances have been towards the purchase of players.
There is a stat that actually says it took us 5 years to spend the £35m we received from Liverpool for the sale of Andy Carroll in 2010. We it actually took us 5 years to spend £35m, over that time the club took in over £500m worth of TV money alone.
Mike Ashley will invest in the club/clear our debts:
Contrary to popular belief Newcastle United did not have much debt when Ashley bought us. The only debt we had was for an expansion of St James' Park from 7 years earlier which was tied to ticket sales. This debt was sustainable and was on course to be paid back on time, however there was clause in the loan. The clause was that if NUFC was to ever be taken over, then the debt would have to be settled immediately. I understand that this type of financing is common within business deals. Now here is where it gets funny. Mike Ashley famously never did a full due diligence check on NUFC, he only had a brief look at our accounts and actually bought us within a few days of first approaching our then owners about buying the club. As such he never knew that this debt had to be paid back immediately until after he bought the club and the money was demanded. This is where he trots out a lie stating 'I cleared their debt, they are debt free' which has become accepted within the media as true. In reality the debt was being paid off and was never at a level where it could cripple the club. Also Ashley did not clear that debt off and forget about it, instead he has kept that debt on the club's value and is demanding it back when the club is sold. The debt has not been cleared, it is just owed too Ashley. Had Ashley not bought the club, the debt would have been paid off by now.
Ashley will invest in the club:
As previously mentioned Mike Ashley has not invested in NUFC. What is most shocking though is that he seemingly does not allow the club to invest it's own money. I have already pointed out how we have actually spent little in transfer fee's and far less than what we have received, however it doesn't stop there. When Mike Ashley bought NUFC we had one of the Premier League's best training grounds, we had a great stadium etc. Before Ashley arrived NUFC were always investing in different areas of the club, for example us and Arsenal were the first clubs to buy those lights that are rolled on and off the pitches, and we were the first club in the Premier League to have heated seats in the dugout to assist the players preparation and recovery for matches. In fact I believe only Real Madrid were before us in having them in the world.
Now our training ground is in a shocking state, many Championship clubs have better facilities, and I know of at least 1 League One club who has better facilities that put ours to shame.
As for SJP. Well the investment has been virtually none. If any of you have been to SJP then you will know that the majority of the roof and the sidewalks to the roof is all glass. This glass has not been cleaned once in 13 years of Ashley's ownership.
In recent years there has been a backlash from fans about the state of disrepair SJP has become, with our fans showing examples online to shame the club into taking action. One example use is of a dead pigeon which has laid trapped in netting below the roof of the Gallowgate stand for over 5 years.
Another example of the brickwork of the stands which is full of grime. A simple pressure washer costing £100 would be enough to solve the problem, heck many fans have offered to do it themselves.
The club have said that they will take action. Well they did, somewhat. Earlier this season they painted some of the wall that was full of grime, and in a dark colour so that they won't ever have to wash it. However the company they used were cheap, so cheap that they never washed the wall before painting it. So now the brick wall has paint over years of dirt, and obviously in time that dirt and damp will just start to rot.
One fan who started publicly humiliating the club is actually a planing developer/inspector. He doesn't work for Newcastle council but a nearby council, however he has contacts with Newcastle and he revelled at supporters meetings that Newcastle council are very concerned with the state SJP is in. For example it is clear that on their inspections the club is not keeping up to date with H&S requirements. One of the examples they used is the equipment they have to prevent rodents and infection is all branded by a company who do not and have not existed for some amount of time. On top of this the equipment has clearly not been checked in-between intervals that they have checked. It is believed that the council have been giving the club warnings are are a=close to taking legal action against them to force them to comply with regulations.
Ashley knows how to get a manager to get a team out of the Championship:
In our first Championship season under Ashley, we had Chris Hughton. It is worth noting that Ashley did not appoint him as manager, in fact Chris Hughton was actually only in charge of the club because he was the most senior member of the coaching staff left at the club following relegation, in fact he was not appointed as manger until a few months into the season. When we were relegated the first time around Alan Shearer was willing to stay on as manager, and kept asking Ashley and those at the club for clarification over the issue as his contract was expiring. When Pre-season training commenced Hughton was the most senior member of the coaching staff left and had to ask what to do. He was told to take charge of training until they appointed someone, that someone was him later in the season when they realised that somehow he was doing a great job.
As for Rafa. It is well documented that Rafa actually approached the club to offer his services. Overtime it became apparent to him that Ashley did not hold the same ambitions for the club as he did. In fact it is rumoured that Rafa was the one to first get Amanda Staveley interested in buying NUFC after meeting her when she attempted to buy Liverpool during his tenure there. He did this because he saw NUFC as a longterm project. Rafa decided not to renew his contract and head for China not because of the money (he could have left for the money at any point), but because Ashley did not match his ambition. He has since dug the boot into Ashley since with quotes like "When I first came they said they would upgrade the training facilities and academy, in the end they painted the walls'. What is certain is that Rafa will never work for an Ashley owned club again.
With Pardew, he only got the job because he was a regular at Llambias' (the chairman of NUFC at that time and close friend of Ashley) casino and deliberately got himself into debt with him. He then kept going to Llambias that if he had a job (he was unemployed after being sacked by League One Southampton) then he would be able to pay him back. Our fans first heard rumours of his appointment 6 weeks before it happened. Hughton was sacked not long after we beat Arsenal at the Emirates, a few months after gaining promotion, at a time when we weren't really in any danger of going down, and after we had wins such as 6-0 vs Aston Villa, and 5-1 against Sunderland just a month or two beforehand.
Pardew did his typical Pardew thing where he has a good year or so, then his management takes a hold and the performances get terrible and the results follow. At one point he wasn't able to come out of the dugout during a home match because the boo's towards him were so loud, a fact which he admitted. He was then able to headbutt an opposition player, and do so without the threat of sack from the club. When he eventually left for Crystal Palace in the January, it wasn't until the summer when we got a replacement for him, which consisted of a period of time which so John Carver nearly take us to relegation with only 2 wins in the 2nd half of the season. Even then his replacement was Steve McClaren who had been sacked by Derby. This indicated that throughout his tenure, the club had no consideration to get rid of him, or worst of all, had no plan B in case Pardew left or was somehow unable to continue as manager.
Ashley will organise the finances:
When Ashley bought us our finances and income were some of the best in the Premier League and we often featured in the top 20 richest clubs in the world list. At the time we were arguably on par or better than Spurs, both on and off the pitch. Since then Spurs have built a new £1bn stadium and have income amongst the best in the world, with mega deals with the likes of Nike.
When Ashley came in he was quoted as saying 'I looked at the finances and we were paying a PR executive £100k a year, that was the first to go, we don't need PR'. At this moment in time NUFC are paying the PR firm KBR £300k a year. KBR is ran by Ashley's close personal friend Keith Bishop, and Ashley owns a large percentage of KBR. The majority of KBR's clients are either Sports Direct, or Sports Direct's brands. He does have a few non Sports Direct clients, most notably Jim White from Sky Sports/Talksport. Keith Bishop's never had any PR experience when setting up KBR, his profession was a lawyer, however for whatever reason he was able get clients like Sports Direct off a bat, which in no way had anything to do knowing Mike Ashley from previous business deals.
When he first came in the very first thing he did was outsource the catering and the majority of staff at SJP. Some people think that's good idea, however when the club's non-matchday income came from events being hosted at SJP, it's not exactly clever to basically give that away. Look at Spurs now who are working in partnership with local brewers etc for their stadium catering, no doubt gaining a hefty profit in the process.
Another thing he did was basically turn our club shop in to a Sports Direct store. The club had 3 club stores located in outside of SJP in Newcastle and the nearby Metrocentre (like Meadowhall). Ok so the internet and general slowing down of the high street would have eventually led to some of those stores closing in anyway, but Ashley cut that straight away. Our merchandise is now sold through Sports Direct. Our clubs store website is a Sports Direct store with a NUFC skin on it. You'll often find merchandise of other clubs on there, such as Rangers, and most recently Man Utd. The finances involved in this deal have not been made public, however when Ashley owned 10% of Rangers, he did a similar tie up with their store which resulted in them earning only 7p from every £1. It is only in this last month that Rangers have managed to wrestle free completely of any deal with Sports Direct. The clauses Rangers had meant that Sports Direct had the opportunity to match any deal Rangers were able to put together with another supplier. He also refused to sell the copyright to the club logo's to the new owners when he sold his share of the club. Ashley was able to hold Rangers to ransom for nearly a decade by only owning 10% of them. The damage he's will have done to us by owning 100% of us for 13 years is going to be interesting to see.
At SJP there is over 100 Sports Direct advertising signs around the pitch. Up until 2 years ago the club did not receive a single penny for this. The clubs stance was that they were showcasing how advertising could look and were awaiting bids. A number of our fans with businesses of their own made bids for these advertising spaces at and above the market value. The club rejected the bids and their response was that they have not received bids at what they perceive as market value. The bids were independently looked at and deemed to be at market value, so how is those bids not market value and not as good as the £0 Sports Direct were paying? To put it simply, the maths do not add up, at least not if you are Newcastle United, it does if you are Sports Direct though. This year after being under pressure by both fans, and Sports Direct shareholders at the Sports Direct AGM's (Newcastle fans and journalist George Caulkin) Sports Direct are paying NUFC for the advertising, a fee of £2m, well below the market value, the previous 2 years the figure was even lower at £1m.
Over all our commercial income since Ashley has took us over has declined. Thats not declined as in relation to inflation, that's means actually declined, I.E. the deals coming in are not as big as they were 13 years ago, even if you don't adjust for inflation.
When Ashley bought the club included in the sale was some land just behind the Gallowgate end. The Gallowgate end is the only end of SJP that can be extended. The land had a market value of £50m before Ashley arrived, once he arrived though he sold the land to himself for £6m and leased the land back to the club for approximately £50m. Land which under Ashley's tenure the club admitted they would never use as the had no ambition to extend the stadium. In the last couple of weeks Ashley has sold this land to a Doncaster based developer, one which is owned by Michael Murray Snr, the father of Ashley's daughters boyfriend, Michael Murray Jnr, more about them both later. Now these developers have planning permission for buildings that would prevent the expansion of the Gallowgate end, and the local Metro system (the Metro line ends underneath it). The planning authorities told the developers if you moved the footprint back of a couple of the proposed buildings which they can do because theirs enough room, and it wouldn't result in any extra costs, then both the Gallowgate end and the Metro line could be extended in future. The developers refused, now there is no chance for the ground to be extended in future, or the Metro to be extended to the west end of the city, an area which suffers from poverty and low public transport services.
I know a few members of the Newcastle Supporters Trust Board, the supporters trust for NUFC that is officially recognised by the FA. About a month ago I was able to talk to one of these board members. NUST have been in contact with the potential new owners of our club. It is their understanding that they expect Ashley to have taken closer to the £1bn than the £500m mark during his ownership of the club, and that is without the £300m he will be selling the club for. The true figure may never be known. With Ashley it's hard to look at the finances on paper and see which deals are legitimate and which aren't. Many of the deals that look legitimate aren't, for example the PR deal with KBR which he partly owns, the free advertising Sports Direct have had for 10 years, the club merchandise deals. Everything he has sold from and every deal he has made with the club, he has made with company he has an interest in.
Ashley knows how to run a business:
Ashley may very well know how to run a business. Like it or not he started Sports Direct through a £10k loan from his parents and went on to become one of countries richest men. If you do or don't agree with the way he got there that's not to say he hasn't succeeded. The thing you have to remember though is when Ashley owns a football, he does not see it as a business. A businessman would have invested or let the company invest it's own revenues to grow if they saw it as a business. Ashley does not see football clubs as a business. Many NUFC will blast me for saying that, but the truth is, Ashley see's a football club as his personal wallet. It has been pointed out where he has cut corners to save money, where he has not invested, where deals have always been made so the money half of it comes back to him. This is why I think Ashley will want a club that he think could get into the Premier League. If he managed to take a club into the Premier League Ashley will be happy to then make deals so the £100m per season earned from being there, will mostly fall back to him.
However let's get away from this part.
When Ashley first came the NUFC he put in charge a man called Chris Moat. Chris Moat was/is a lawyer and was heavily involved in the deal to buy the club on Ashley's side. He had known Ashley through previous business deals and became a close friend of his outside of business, similar to Keith Bishop. However Moat wasn't happy with the way Ashley started running the business, in fact he was worried that his own name would be tarnished. About a year or so in Moat left, his ambition was away to leave, but he did so a little sooner and apparently his relationship with Ashley soured and they are no longer friends. As it happens it is reported that Chris Moat is now assisting our prospective owners on their deal to buy the club.
Ads his replacement Ashley brought in Derek Llambias. Remember me mentioning him? Yes that's right, he's the casino owner who Pardew allegedly got into debt with in order to get the job. Now Llambias had no experience of running a football club, all he knows is casino's and like many people involved with NUFC under Ashley, only got the job because he happens to be a friend of Ashley's. When fans started to turn onto Ashley, Llabias was once quoted as saying 'The fans think we are nasty, they have no idea how nasty we can'. Eventually Lambias had enough of NUFC and left, he later with Ashley to Rangers and was they key man behind ruining them.
Without a replacement or a friend left to take on the role there wasn't many people left to run the club, remember when I said Ashley outsourced everything and got rid of the staff? One of the finance officers had left earlier to take a job in the aviation industry, and the only person there was underneath him was the man who was in charge of the box office who was quickly promoted to the finance side of things (Lee Chrnley). When Llambias did leave the former finance director had already left and the only person was the nearly promoted finance director, enter Lee Charnley.
Since then Lee Charnley has been the man running from top to bottom. This man has to do everything and nothing happens at the club without his say so, this from hiring the manager, buying players, day to day running, organising sponsorships deals (the few that aren't related to Ashley), everything goes though him. A few years ago the clubs raided as part of an HMRC tax investigation, Lee Charnley was taken in for questioning, and his home was also raided. The fans joked that the club wouldn't comment on the matter until Lee Charnley was released as theirs no one at the club left who would be able to give a comment. A day later and 3 hours after his release, the club released the first statement, poor Lee was probably having to write that statement before being able to go back to his ransacked home, change out of his clothes he hastily put on the morning before during the raid, and have a shower.
Poor Lee has never even got a pay rise from his earlier promotions until our fans mocked him about his wages, being lower than a lot of Championship club chairman at the time. Even with his recent wage wise, he's still one of the lower paid club CEO's in the Premier League, and has to 10 fold them amount of work.
Late last year the supporters group had a meeting. At the meeting it was revelled that the club was very close to being deducted points because they were failing to provide adequate facilities for disabled supporters as in line with Premier League regulations. Now that in addition to the HMRC investigation which is still ongoing doesn't exactly sound like a club that's being well run does it?
That's the thing with Ashley though, everyone who will run the club will have no interest in running the club and will be doing the bare minimum, and they will all effectively just be a yes man and a name to put down as a director.
In the column, I wrote I mention how he already has his next yes man lined up. His name is Michael Murray, the son of a developer and bar owner in Doncaster of the same name. He knows Ashley because he is engaged to Ashley's eldest daughter.
That's ok, he might know about business because of his dad? Actually no. I happen to have family in Doncaster who in turn know people there and know the Murrays. You see Michael Murray Jnr grew up with no business interest, in fact the story is he met Ashley's daughter whilst he was out in Ibiza acting as a DJ via daddy's cash, probably meeting via Ashley's son who was also doing the very same thing. Since his relationship with Ashley's daughter blossomed, so did Ashley's liking to him, and now he is a paid advisor at Sports Direct earning £10m a year. Many at Sports Direct are baffled at how an external advisor with no business experience is being paid a wage far higher than anyone else at the company, a wage of the like that no one has been paid since Ashley's brother was brought in to sort out some IT issues. Are you starting to see the pattern here?
In recent years there has been rumours of Lee Charnley being offered various positions, one at an airport (given to him by the man who promoted him at Newcastle), and one at Newcastle racecourse, the latter of which now seems unlikely considering the Rueben brothers now own the racecourse and likely won't be happy at the damage at NUFC that he's signed over.
Anyway, it's long been my fear that sooner or later the next person in line to head NUFC will be Micheal Murray Jnr, the only way of escaping this would only happen if Ashley sold us. However if Ashley does invest in another football club, there is no doubt that he'll be the yes man he chooses to place in charge.
I hope that I have been able to give a lot of context towards Ashleys and what he's like.
I'm not going to sit here and say he's better than your current owner or not, because as an outsider I simply won't know the ins and outs of your club that well. It simply is nit my place for me to say what you will and won't accept as supporters of your club.
In my opinion if Ashley did take you over, then the height of his ambition would be for you to yo-yo, and I don't think he would allow you to invest the kind of money that would be required to do that, regardless of if you generate it or not. Ashley will always want to do things on a budget, buying your or a Championship club for next to nothing compared to the money he will earn from the sale of us will be seen as bargain for him, the thing is he'll want to be able to get promoted for much less than what other clubs hope to do it with, ultimately I think he'd end up allowing you or any other Championship club to fall further down the league than up it. Much like how his ambition for us was to stay in the Premier League and he failed twice.
If there is anything you want to ask them feel free to ask.
For what it's worth, I have respect for your club. Your fans are the best fans I've seen come to Newcastle, and generated the best home atmosphere I've been too during my away day travels. I hope to see you back in the Premier League soon enough, and hope you can achieve it without having someone like Ashley at your club.
I have attached the original column piece that I wrote for added context.
https://www.themag.co.uk/2020/04/warning-mike-ashley-isnt-finished-with-football-after-newcastle-united/
