Toon takeover latest – Harris speaks.
Posted on September 2nd, 2009 | 32 Comments |
If reports that the club owed £20m on that overdraft facility are true, then Ashley would have needed to pay off the other £10m by August 31st.
Barry Moat was apparently in the process of trying to negotiate some sort of deal with Barclays, which would allow the club to maintain a working overdraft facility higher than £10m and thus put him in a better position to take over the club.
I therefore wonder what happened with that, not that I’m expecting to hear anything from the club about it.
Then there’s the US bid originally fronted by Sheard. Apparently members of that consortium have already left the States and are hoping to talk with Ashley and Llambias about their bid over the next few days.
Keith Harris talked about the Toon takeover situation on Sky News, saying:
“Gut instinct is that now the transfer window is over, that has led now to a period up until the end of year when I think deals can be done, just more gently.
“My predicting ability has been proven not to be very accurate I’m afraid, I don’t mean just Newcastle, just trying to predict how football behaves in this economic environment has not been terrific.
“I think what we’ll see is a mixture of local money and foreign money and of all the clubs, arguably, in England and Scotland the one that probably demands some form of local interest more than any other is Newcastle.
That’s not the most inspiring of updates but I think it just means that the club will not be taken off the market and will instead just remain ‘for sale’ for the foreseeable future. It might also suggest that a takeover deal is not imminent, although that last paragraph of Harris’s quote does seem to point to Barry Moat unless the US bid somehow includes ‘local interest’.
Although I’m just speculating of course.
Surely Harris is on about Moat. We know he’s in talks and we know he has overseas money.
Moat has been in talks for a while now and I cannot see it dragging on for another 3 months.
It is a possibility that Harris mean the deal won’t be completed until before xmas but Moat could agree a deal tomorrow.
Wishful thinkin I know….