We are now in the business end of the January transfer window, and so far, Newcastle have done next to nothing in regard to transfers. We have had Lazio’s Jordan Lukaku over to Tyneside for a medical, which he subsequently failed. As Lee said on the YouTube channel on Saturday morning, well done to the medical staff for catching it, and pulling the deal.
It is obvious to all that we are in need of serious recruitment and improvements in several areas. Yesterdays FA Cup defeat to Watford highlighted this need for recruitment. You can almost guarantee that once the window closes on Thursday the club will release a statement saying we couldn’t get anything over the line.
It’s getting that common now, there almost doesn’t seem to be a need for the club to release any statements, we as fans can write them for you, why invest in PR staff, when it’s a copy and paste exercise every window.
The need for investment in the club is there for all to see, well apart from Rio Ferdinand, Richard Keys and Tim Sherwood who all think we should be thankful! But we have been stuck with a parasite in charge for the past 11/12 years that simply won’t invest in the club, and the only time he has was for Steve McClaren!
But we shouldn’t be surprised, when you take a step back from all the anger and resentment, and believe me, from my end there is quite a bit, and look at the Bloke, he doesn’t seem to invest in any of his businesses to the point there seems to be a continuous theme running through everything the waste of oxygen owns.
Looking at Sports Direct, he seems to do enough to keep them running. The shops don’t seem to have a lick of paint since he’s formed the company, the stock (apart from football kits and football boots) are all a year out of date at least, which would explain why they can be so cheap. The staff are all on zero-hour contracts, even though there have been numerous calls from the Government for him to stop this ‘slave labour’. The fact he owns shares, or outright owns some of the brands in his stores, means there is no investment in buying the stock, he does enough to keep the stores ticking over, and pockets the money, that sounds similar somehow?!
Similarly, with his purchase of House of Fraser, there was the talks with InTu to drop rent prices, and even threatened to pull stores out of large shopping centres, leading to massive job losses, because he won’t invest. The House of Fraser shops now look like a slightly posher Sports Direct, with whole corners of the store dedicated to Lee Cooper and Firetrap stock where Hugo Boss or Armani (probably) should stand. It was the same with Debenhams, even though he only has a small portion of shares in the brand, he offered to give them a £40 million loan, which was turned down. Now to me a loan would imply he wants it back at some point, so again no investment in something his name is attached too, just doing the bare minimum and taking the money.
Now this ‘saviour of the high-street’ wants to save HMV, but he doesn’t want to pay any rent for the first 6 months. So again trying to put minimal effort and investment into anything. This waste of human skin seems to have a business model he will stick to, regardless of what he is running.
This brings me back to our club. The Fat man will never invest, looking at how he runs his other businesses proves that. But a football club isn’t a high-street store. It affects more people, it’s a central point to a community. This mismanagement has even led Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwurah to take the issue to the House of Commons. A call for transparency in regards to club finances, a way to answer the question of ‘Where’s the money?”.
The Tory response from the Sports minister was basically he has passed the ‘fit and proper persons’ test set out by the FA and Premier League. A test that makes sure an owner can invest in a club, not something that ensures that he will! This is the issue, he has the money, the club has the money but it is just sitting in the bank account collecting dust.
Chi garnered a lot of support from the wider football world on Thursday when she appeared at Westminster, but it won’t deter the cancer on our club, he has been pulled before Parliament several times to tell him that he can’t run businesses the way he does, he smiles agrees and walks away, and doesn’t change anything.
The fact that the club have been named the 19th richest in the world, will only cement in his warped mind that he is doing something right! The majority of that income coming from league position and TV rights, simply by being in the Premier League he is able to pocket more! Matchday income only accounts for a small portion of his income, I call it his because it doesn’t go into the club! So yes everyone can cancel their season tickets, stop going to matches, it won’t matter to this parasitic glutenous blob, he didn’t even seem to flinch when he reportedly lost hundreds of millions of share stock in the summer, instead he paid for pizza and Portebello’s and bought House of Fraser.
As long as we are on TV, he won’t leave, because he is making at least £170M a year from TV deals, what are we going to do, ask Sky and BT Sports to never show Newcastle, which would stop the TV money, can’t pay for something that doesn’t happen.
Herein lies the problem! He won’t sell up! It doesn’t take 11 years to sell your house, only if you had no intention of selling in the first place. How do we remove this problem, it seems hitting him in his pockets doesn’t seem to work, he will buy up other places to increase his monetary income. He will just put his name to something but never invest in it, and just reap the rewards without any work.