Abuse must stop or Ashley won’t invest
Posted on September 11th, 2011 | 20 Comments |
No doubt you’ve all seen the questions The Chronicle put to the NUFC board and the answers they received from them? If not, you can see them here.
Most of the answers are along the lines we would have expected, so there aren’t really any surprises. An interesting point though was the suggestion that we have to stop abusing Mike Ashley if we want him to continue funding the club. It came as part of the answer to the question: Is Mike Ashley considering putting the club up for sale?
Apparently he’s not unless an incredible offer comes along, although quite what classes as ‘incredible’ is anybody’s guess. But the answer is followed by this:
“I’d like to make a further point here. This club can’t support itself without the financial backing of Mike Ashley; we still rely heavily on the owner. To date Mike has invested over £280m into the club, including £140m in interest-free loans. For him to continue to support the club, he has to be interested and enthused to do so.
“He deserves credit for his financial support but a section of supporters don’t make him feel welcome at St James’ Park, or when he attends away games. Criticism is part and parcel of the job, abuse is not. This makes life uncomfortable and certainly doesn’t make Mike feel more inclined to put his hand once again in his pocket. That’s not stubbornness, it’s human nature. I think most of us would feel exactly the same.”
The implication is clear. Either we stop abusing him or no new funds will be invested in Newcastle United by Mike Ashley.
I can see the broad point like – nobody is going to be too impressed by receiving abuse – but Newcastle United Limited is a business entity and Mike Ashley has a duty to do right by it regardless of what fans may do. It just sounds to me like a ready-made excuse to avoid investing in the club. I somehow doubt that all the fans are going to stop abusing him if, even if some did, and I’m pretty sure Mike Ashley knows that too.
The implication is that the fans must assume responsibility for part of Newcastle’s financial future but I’m afraid that’s just not on. I think Mike Ashley bought this club hoping for some sort of buddy-buddy Utopia where he could sit with the fans and in the ground and sink a few pints with them afterwards. But that idea rapidly faded because on the back of some poor decisions by Ashley some of the fans turned against him.
Well I’m sorry but that’s extremely naive. Newcastle United is a responsibility and I’m afraid Mike Ashley should be following through with whatever financial plans he has for it regardless of the actions of some of the fans. If he is not prepared to do the best thing for Newcastle based on the level of abuse he receives then I’d question his fitness to run the club in the first place.
I’m not saying that he should invest certain amounts in the company every year but that what he does invest should not be based on the level of abuse he gets from fans. It is in fact the duty of a director to act in the best interests of a company regardless of whether or not that’s in their own personal best interests.
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.
This statement sums up the ‘man’. This is emotional blackmail and it doesn’t suprise me in the least that he would resort to this. GET OUT OF OUR CLUB.