Mike Ashley (11 Viewers)

Great_Expectations

Well-Known Member
It’s interesting isn’t it. To be clear I’d bite your hand off for that situation overall.

However…a big part of our journey in the last few years has been our identity. Hummel kits etc. Will be a shame to see that go
Thays my concern. I want this ride to carry on, not being replaced by foreign managers and identikit expensive signings with no affinity to the club.

Definitely this.

This season aside we’ve had an incrementally good few years, progressing on the pitch and as a “brand”. All of which has helped bring together fans, players and club, and we’ve felt like a team.

We don’t know what Ashley would do, but he’ll want to put his stamp on things whatever that entails.

Ideal world, new owners continue with our organic growth, provides funds to MR then stays in the background running the club as efficiently as possible.

I know this isn’t happening, and I’ve mentioned it before, but becoming the next Man City, Newcastle etc doesn’t fill me with excitement.
 

D

Deleted member 5849

Guest
Not for me. We onto different kinds of vomit, and whether we want the luxury chunky version or the one with a free mug?
 

Torquay Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
Definitely this.

This season aside we’ve had an incrementally good few years, progressing on the pitch and as a “brand”. All of which has helped bring together fans, players and club, and we’ve felt like a team.

We don’t know what Ashley would do, but he’ll want to put his stamp on things whatever that entails.

Ideal world, new owners continue with our organic growth, provides funds to MR then stays in the background running the club as efficiently as possible.

I know this isn’t happening, and I’ve mentioned it before, but becoming the next Man City, Newcastle etc doesn’t fill me with excitement.
Ashley might be your man then. We ain't going to be anything like Man City with him . More Brighton and I wouldn't say no to that
 

HuckerbyDublinWhelan

Well-Known Member
What would the joint set up look like?
If it's 51%-49% what does that mean for liabilities on each other?
Does for instance the major shareholder become liable to the Sisu debt?
I’d imagine new owner come in and is given 51% or minimally sold. They assume control of the club income and expenditure and then the promise is at a certain point the 49% is then bought out
 

Sky Blue Harry H

Well-Known Member
Don't see why Newcastle fans hated him...he got them back to the prem spent a few million on players and got the richest owners for them...that'll do for me

A bit like the Glazers (without the initial loading of debt). Ashley made a good profit every year out of Newcastle, which he trousered. He was never that bothered about where the club finished, as long as they stayed in the PL. The fans quickly got frustrated with that approach, and saw that he had no intention to realise the fans' ambitions.
 

Yorkshire SB

Well-Known Member
Mike Ashley’s early time at Newcastle was different. He’d don a shirt and stand with the away fans. Think definitely tried to embrace it and be a good owner.

Reality is he’s a very successful businessman, he took Newcastle as far as he could, the fans turned, and decided he didn’t want to lose anymore money, so shut up shop.

My concern would be that eventually he became very stubborn with Newcastle, and he’s got a rep as a bit of a dickhead. His management of the club itself was also pretty shit, brought in bad people, didn’t invest outside of the players, E.g. run down training ground, no academy investment, etc. That said, we’ve not really had any of that before anyway, so we’re a very different proposition. Given that, and all things considered I think he would be a better proposition than our current situation.
 

Mcbean

Well-Known Member
Mike Ashley’s early time at Newcastle was different. He’d don a shirt and stand with the away fans. Think definitely tried to embrace it and be a good owner.

Reality is he’s a very successful businessman, he took Newcastle as far as he could, the fans turned, and decided he didn’t want to lose anymore money, so shut up shop.

My concern would be that eventually he became very stubborn with Newcastle, and he’s got a rep as a bit of a dickhead. His management of the club itself was also pretty shit, brought in bad people, didn’t invest outside of the players, E.g. run down training ground, no academy investment, etc. That said, we’ve not really had any of that before anyway, so we’re a very different proposition. Given that, and all things considered I think he would be a better proposition than our current situation.
Thing is with Nequay fans they even turned on Kevin Keegan so it was bound to end badly
 

curly_tom

Well-Known Member
That‘s just ridiculous

I think it's ok to have a view on who owns the club, who you give your money to and how success is achieved. As far as I can tell this guy is a very nasty character who mistreats his staff to add to his incredible fortune. It may be the case that our current owners are similar but we don't know. I don't think taking an ethical stance on the owner is 'ridiculous'. I would be horrified if I was a Newcastle fan right now funded by the Saudis. I realise we are not talking about the same level of person but I would genuinely be happier without him and without the success his wealth might bring.
 

Esoterica

Well-Known Member
People are talking like Ashley takes over and we automatically become a yo-yo PL/Championship club because Newcastle were. Newcastle were an established Premier League team when he took them over. It's a lot easier to get out the Championship when you arrive there with parachute payments and a Premier League squad than it is to take a bottom half Championship team up. There's plenty of teams at this level that have spunked millions trying to achieve that and failed.

Throw in a random director of football that upsets Robins, a move away from Hummel that has helped us regain an identity back to some horrid template kits, an Arena plastered with his brands and things could get ugly very quickly. It feels like SISU have been here for decades, but he took over Newcastle in the same year they arrived. Another 15 years of an owner we don't like much and it could be 30 years we've been suffering.

But beggars can't be choosers and I guess we have to hope he's learned some lessons along the way and probably have to take it, just to get the control away from SISU. Fingers crossed he wants to do a condensed version of what he did at Newcastle, and look to get us promoted and move us on to someone richer in 5 or 6 years. It's a direction of no return though because the only way he's selling up, if he gets in, is to someone that can afford to make him a tidy profit.
 

Levship20

Well-Known Member
I think it's ok to have a view on who owns the club, who you give your money to and how success is achieved. As far as I can tell this guy is a very nasty character who mistreats his staff to add to his incredible fortune. It may be the case that our current owners are similar but we don't know. I don't think taking an ethical stance on the owner is 'ridiculous'. I would be horrified if I was a Newcastle fan right now funded by the Saudis. I realise we are not talking about the same level of person but I would genuinely be happier without him and without the success his wealth might bring.

Brakes on please. We are way ahead of ourselves and judging a new owner before he has even stated his intention (to the public).
Everyday most of you all buy products (food/clothes) from companies who are not angels. Most major supermarkets treat staff and suppliers in a heavy handed way, clothes which look great on the shelf are often made in run down factories and in poor regions/countries.
So, let’s get over the hurdle of somebody buying the stadium (and hopefully CCFC) before we begin to judge.
 

Gynnsthetonic

Well-Known Member
People are talking like Ashley takes over and we automatically become a yo-yo PL/Championship club because Newcastle were. Newcastle were an established Premier League team when he took them over. It's a lot easier to get out the Championship when you arrive there with parachute payments and a Premier League squad than it is to take a bottom half Championship team up. There's plenty of teams at this level that have spunked millions trying to achieve that and failed.

Throw in a random director of football that upsets Robins, a move away from Hummel that has helped us regain an identity back to some horrid template kits, an Arena plastered with his brands and things could get ugly very quickly. It feels like SISU have been here for decades, but he took over Newcastle in the same year they arrived. Another 15 years of an owner we don't like much and it could be 30 years we've been suffering.

But beggars can't be choosers and I guess we have to hope he's learned some lessons along the way and probably have to take it, just to get the control away from SISU. Fingers crossed he wants to do a condensed version of what he did at Newcastle, and look to get us promoted and move us on to someone richer in 5 or 6 years. It's a direction of no return though because the only way he's selling up, if he gets in, is to someone that can afford to make him a tidy profit.
Don't think he'd spunk millions, carry on as we are but with more investment in the structure and ownership of the stadium. Its why I'd like someone like Hoffman working along side him to keep up the good work off the pitch like kits and communication with the fans
 

TomRad85

Well-Known Member
It says a lot about how low our expectations have become when Mike Ashley is seen as the answer
It does but I don't understand why some are so down on it. Ashley owning club and stadium vs SISU owning us and renting the stadium from the parasites. Its an obvious step up.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk
 

curly_tom

Well-Known Member
Brakes on please. We are way ahead of ourselves and judging a new owner before he has even stated his intention (to the public).
Everyday most of you all buy products (food/clothes) from companies who are not angels. Most major supermarkets treat staff and suppliers in a heavy handed way, clothes which look great on the shelf are often made in run down factories and in poor regions/countries.
So, let’s get over the hurdle of somebody buying the stadium (and hopefully CCFC) before we begin to judge.

Fair response. I do avoid Amazon and others but you're right, we are all buying from vile companies. I think it's all moot anyway because SISU probably won't sell...
 

SBT

Well-Known Member
It's all about fan expectation. Newcastle fans think they should be champions league every year despite them not winning anything since before we were all born. They want their owner to spend as much as it takes to do that so they might now have the correct owners.

Ashley prefers to try and run a break even policy or as close as he can. In his 14 years at Newcastle the club spent over 1/2 a billion pounds in transfers. The net spend was was closer to 150 million so too say he never spent anything and just took money out is misleading.

How many of us would turn down that investment for a few sports direct signs at the stadium with the majority of the next 14 years as a mid table Prem team?

This line keeps getting trotted out (especially by people who are for some reason big Mike Ashley fans).

The reason that Newcastle United fans had big European expectations is because they were a big European club - at least, they were when Ashley took over. Back then, Newcastle had a top 5 wage bill in the EPL, qualified for Europe almost every year, and were in the top 20 clubs globally for generating revenue. After he took over, they qualified for the Europa League once, got relegated twice, and slipped to mid-table in everything from wage bill, to transfer net spend, to commercial revenues, to league position.

While Ashley did eventually manage to turn profits, stabilise the finances, and flip the team to owners apparently prepared to spend at top 5 levels again, Newcastle under Ashley got overtaken and left behind by teams who were well behind them 15 years ago - it’s only now he’s left that they can think about getting back to where they were again.

More stats in this thread here:
 

Nick

Administrator
With the stadium stuff, it's hard to say without knowing each of their plans.

Ashley could come in and be awful, SISU could back off and get a 51% owner for the club and it be amazing of they could be even worse than SISU, NEC could turn out to be amazing for CCFC.

It's so hard to say :(
 

The Philosopher

Well-Known Member
With Ashley:

We’ll have linked ownership of stadium/club/training ground.

He might bring in a director of football. Might be Dennis Wise. Who knows?

He’ll probably rebrand the arena at some point and put a Sports Direct shop in the arena. (Personally prefer CBS as the name)

Cov City shirts may go downhill - why would he keep Hummel? (who’ve been brilliant) but Cov Shirts may be stocked at more stores to raise profile.

Bills will get paid.

Very little chance of an embargo.

Other teams won’t be able to raid our top talent on the cheap à la Hyam.

Players will have certainty that they will get paid.

The Council won’t be able to bully him.

He might invest elsewhere in the city eg put a Sports Direct warehouse nearby which creates jobs (if he’s going to be here - why not)

I’ll close with:

People learn from their mistakes, and he made some early mistakes with the Toon. He’s also very sharp or he wouldn’t have achieved all he has.

Good short to medium option. Better than what we’ve got for sure. How do we know US investors won’t be like SISU or Glaziers?
 
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shmmeee

Well-Known Member
With Ashley:

We’ll have linked ownership of stadium/club/training ground.

He might bring in a director of football. Might be Dennis Wise. Who knows?

He’ll probably rebrand the arena at some point and put a Sports Direct shop in the arena. (Personally prefer CBS as the name)

Cov City shirts may go downhill - why would he keep Hummel? (who’ve been brilliant) but Cov Shirts may be stocked at more stores to raise profile.

Bills will get paid.

Very little chance of an embargo.

Other teams won’t be able to raid our top talent on the cheap à la Hyam.

Players will have certainty that they will get paid.

The Council won’t be able to bully him.

He might invest elsewhere in the city eg put a Sports Direct warehouse nearby which creates jobs (if he’s going to be here - why not)

I’ll close with:

People learn from their mistakes, and he made some early mistakes with the Toon. He’s also very sharp or he wouldn’t have achieved all he has.

Good short to medium option. Better than what we’ve got for sure. How do we know US investors won’t be like SISU or Glaziers?

Being rich does not mean you are “very sharp” I refer the honourable gentleman to Elon Musk.
 

The Philosopher

Well-Known Member
Being rich does not mean you are “very sharp” I refer the honourable gentleman to Elon Musk.
Musk has been sharp in the past I’d warrant; but his behaviour has been mad of late.

Twitter is a dying platform and he has overpaid. Got a feeling that he’s going to whack a huge claim in against the vendors though.

This Starlink and Russia business is a bit suicidal. If I were the richest man in the world I’d be on a beach - not trying to upset Putin - no good could possibly come.

Yes. He’s mad.
 

JonesBob

Well-Known Member
He is the most successful British businessman at present, as is Musk and Trump. They all have a similar character that would possibly retract me from adding them to my Christmas list. Saying that, I am not their judge, so I am sure they will not lose any sleep about my feeling towards them. If anyone invests in CCFC I will be astonished, grateful and supportive.
Just another comment regarding 'who' we would like. I really think many of you should smell the coffee because you want the person to be mega rich, invest mountains of money, do all this and still give us the cheapest ST in the country, as well as, have the character of a best friend, drink buddy and sugar-daddy rolled into one. Get real.
 

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