Mr. Popular.In the latest salvo of the Ashley counter offensive, Newcastle United’s managing Director, Derek Llambias, has been revealing the depth of Mike Ashley’s financial black hole in an interview for Radio Newcastle. He moaned about the financial meltdown involved when a monster £70 million wages club that is supposed to be geared up for European competition get relegated and much more…
What follows is Llambias’s exchange with Radio Newcastle’s Mick Lowes.
On the financial consequences of relegation, Llambias said:
“It’s been extremely painful – it was a shock, it was unthinkable. We did have a business plan in place at the time that we just put into a cupboard, because we thought we never needed to use it.
“We’ve had to move on since then and it’s given us an opportunity to bring the wages down to an acceptable level in the Premier League, but not in the Championship. (more…)
It's good to talkDerek Llambias explains about the renaming of Newcastle United’s stadium.
The upshot is that St James’ Park will not be lost. The names of sponsors will just be added to the front of it in the manner of something such as ‘Sports Direct @ St James’ Park‘ or ‘Pampers @ St James’ Park‘.
Llambias goes on to say that he and Mike Ashley are fully aware of the tradition involved with things like this but that they are looking for ways to maximise revenue for the club. Llambias explains that Mike Ashley is a ‘football fan’ and understands the sensitivity around this issue.
Of course Llambias was instrumental in the constructive dismissal of Kevin Keegan and subsequent attempts to cover up the club’s actions at the tribunal, so believe what you will. (more…)
Mike's been there, seen it, got the t-shirt!No honestly, I really do. I mean he’s clearly absolutely crackers. What, you think all of this apparent contempt towards Newcastle United fans and his bad behaviour is all down to arrogance and spite? No man, he’s nuts. How else do you explain his actions and this reckless and continual ‘p*ssing on his own chips’?
I mean for the big G’s sake Mike, where do you pick up your PR finesse from? It’s out of this world, really it is. You’re clearly on a different planet. He generally says nothing for such long periods that you’d expect when he does that he’d say something that would have a big impact. Well he does, but not for the right reasons. Even following the tribunal result and the monumental cause and effect, there followed no explanation, no excuses, no apology, nowt. I’d heard rumour while at work today that he’d been speaking to The Sunday Times and then I read the brief summary piece that .com did and both found what he had to say astounding and myself agreeing wholeheartedly with their response.
After reading Stardust’s “Red Bus” post recently… I had in mind to do a moment by moment de-construct of Ashley’s two year term. Then Hugh posted, what I consider to be, one of the finest, most considered, most literate blogs I have ever read on Ashley’s tenure, making most of what I’d planned to say redundant.
The problem I now faced was I had a lovely image with nowhere to, legitimately place it?
In order to bring down the maximum amount of rhetoric from all posters (who have me down as some kind of belligerent, bigoted, nightmarish, ignorant lunatic)…I thought I’d post it here….with no proper justification whatsoever.
The reason being…..I thought I’d captured a likeness, of both Mike and Del, that really did them justice. (more…)
Both good and bad?When Mike Ashley rode into toon he took the Freddy Shepherd Gang by surprise. Shepherd claims he was ambushed while he lay incapacitated on a hospital bed and before we knew it rumour quickly became fact and Ashley had bought Newcastle United, not exactly with a suitcase full of money but without any of the this due diligence nonsense that troubles most businessmen.
Thus began a new era in the club’s history and it’s one that has managed to divide fans almost throughout. The partisan divisions – often drawn along the lines of Ashley v Keegan – are, in my opinion, unnecessary. I believe it’s perfectly possible for a person to do some good things and some bad things and I don’t believe Mike Ashley is any different in that respect. With rumours once more circulating about the sale saga nearing a close I wanted to try and take a balanced view of Ashley’s time at Newcastle.
One of the main things I thank Mike Ashley for is prising the club away from Freddy Shepherd. I’ve heard arguments suggesting that we wouldn’t have been relegated if Shepherd had remained in charge and maybe that’s true, but I believe the club would have been in dire straits financially. (more…)
