Joey Barton: Saying what he sees.Well, Joey Barton did promise on Twitter that he would “tell all when the time was right” and he’s finally kept his word.
Speaking in a long audio podcast interview for the Queen’s Park Ranger’s ‘blog “Open All R’s,” he finally lifted the lid on his time at Newcastle United and his strained relationship with the infamous Ashley / Llambias regime. In the interview, he revealed what he felt were the real reasons why he and other senior members of the squad have been forced out St James’ Park, how the club tried to force him to sign a contract on a fifth of his old wage whilst he was in Walton prison, what he feels were the real reasons behind the sacking of Chris Hughton, how despite his profound hatred of Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias, he still feels a strong affinity with the club and more…
Some (misquoted) sections of the interview have already appeared in the media and other ‘blogs, so I decided to make a more accurate and extensive transcription of all the sections which related to Newcastle United. I’ve have also included the mp3 podcast of the entire interview at the bottom of the piece.
Responding to a QPR fan’s question on what swung it for him to come to Queen’s Park Rangers, Barton began by outlining the reson’s why he had to leave his former club saying:
“I was obviously deemed by the board at Newcastle “Persona non grata” (Person not welcome). They didn’t want me because I asked questions.(more…)
Owlheed: Nothing to hide.As question’s are asked over the alleged £2.5 million in agent’s fees involved in Joey Barton’s transfer to Queen’s Park Rangers, Newcastle United’s Managing Director, Derek Llambias, washed his hands of the affair, insisting that he is “more than happy” for Newcastle United to be probed by the FA over the deal.
According to the Sun newspaper (I know, I know), The FA have been “urged” to probe Barton’s transfer to the west London “Hoops”, more specifically, the issue of alleged fees paid to Barton’s agent, Willie McKay, and a mystery company brought in to represent Barton. There has even been specultion that this mystery company may even be Barton himself, or someone else very close to the player.
To explain: In this case according to the Stun, rather than McKay acting for Barton as his agent, as would usually be the case, he is alleged to have acted for Queen’s Park Rangers instead, with the above mentioned mystery company acting for Barton’s interests.
There fees were said to be £1.3m to McKay, and £1.2 million to the mystery company who acted as Barton’s representative. The newspaper also alleged that a £1.5 million signing on fee was paid to Barton himself on a four year contract with £40,000 per week salary. Beisdes this, it also said that Barton would be paid a £250,000 end of season bonus if QPR avoid relegation at the end of the season.
When grilled by a Stun reporter on the unconventional arrangement, McKay said of the deal:(more…)
From Inter to Newcastle for £5m?With talk of Davide Santon to Newcastle seeming ever likely, the obvious question is where will he fit into the squad?
The 20 year old started plying his trade on the wing and gradually moved back to his current position as full back, or to be more precise, wing back and despite being right footed, can play on either flank and is always willing to terrorise both defenders and attackers with his raw pace.
You’ll all be glad to know that unlike most Italian players, this lad actually has strength and doesn’t go down screaming about how the wind knocked him off the ball and how it should be red carded for violent conduct. So there’s a bonus.
Of course, the title is a little bit sensationalist – he could walk into the squad in either full back position and he probably knows it. He fits into the continental style of right footers on the left wing and vice verse and as far as I know he could very well prefer the left flank – that is, after all, where he gets the most games. (more…)
What's a 'huge fee'?Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew has indicated that a huge amount of fees go to agents for transfers and such, but just how much classes as ‘huge’?
One of the things I picked up on in Workyticket’s transcription of Alan Pardew’s interview is that he (meaning Alan Pardew rather than Worky) claimed we pay huge sums of money to agents as part of any transfer agreement.
What Pardew said was:
“I was listening earlier when you was talking about the money being spent and I just want to sort of make something clear. When you sign someone like Demba Ba and someone like Marveaux there’s huge fees involved in that, it isn’t just transfer fees. This is unfortunately how the Premier League works and a lot of money in those deals doesn’t come back through the system. Ideally, in the old days we would sign someone from the Championship and it would go back into the English game but this money’s going out through agents and stuff like that.”
So I thought I’d do some investigation to try and find out just how much money is spent on things like agents’ fees. (more…)
How will that £35m be spent?The transfer market is a strange and sometimes scary place, with confusion abound by exactly how much money we apparently have, others have the knowledge only provided by Football Manager and FIFA and you’d be surprised how correct that actually is. The long and short is, we have never had £35m to spend – never.
There’s a lot of confusion around exactly what we have to spend since the sale of local lad and full time thug Andy Carroll to Liverpool for £35m with £30 of that being handed over in cold, hard cash – just how we like it. Alan Pardew himself stated that the money was to be reinvested in the squad and even went as far as to say that he wanted it solely for players but unfortunately, that isn’t how it works.
At the start of the season, the manager and the chairman sits down and discusses season targets, contracts, incoming players, outgoing players and everything else you’d come to associate with a professional football club. (more…)
