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…)
Llambias and Ashley the "Saviour".Newcastle United’s Managing Director, Derek Llambias has hit back at what he described as “a small and very negative group” who “insist on chanting ugly and abusive comments” directed at the club’s Southern owner, Mike Ashley. He also added that “If it wasn’t for Mike’s continued input, we would be in a similar position to Portsmouth.” Of course, Portsmouth are a club who are currently under Administration, and have even faced the threat of complete extinction in recent weeks.
Indeed, Newcastle United did find themselves in a very difficult financial situation after years of financial mismanagement and misappropriation of funds by previous chairmen, Sir John Hall and Freddy Shepherd, with the situation coming to a head when Ashley found over £100 million of hidden debt after taking over the club without performing adequate “Due Diligence” on the club’s accounts. (more…)
Ashley: £25 million cash injection?In a somewhat surprising article in todays News of the World, it has been revealed that our illustrious owner, Mike Ashley, has stepped into the breach during December, loaning the club another £25 million to keep it a going concern. Now this is from the News of the World and huge pinches of salt are required as this story also features our old friend ‘the club source’.
Apparently this money has been given to us on in interest only basis to help pay the wages and cover the general day to day running costs of Newcastle United. It has been said that some of this cash was used to fund the purchases of January signings Danny Simpson, Leon Best, Wayne Routledge and Mike Williamson. Now I’m going to start running through the article so sit down for club inside knowledge and sensationalism. The ‘club source’ said to the Sport of the World: (more…)
Not a single serious bidderAfter a summer of discontent at Newcastle United, with the club having been up for sale since May, we’ve failed to attract a single serious buyer.
It seems Moat was all mouth and all the other ‘bidders’ were either publicity hunters, time-wasters or chancers who only expressed an interest in the hope of purchasing way below Ashley’s £100m asking price.
A few weeks ago I posted an article which quoted the Telegraph’s ‘source close to the club’ as follows:
“No one has come up with any money – no one.
“Barry Moat and the South Africans have one thing in common – they are all talking but they have no produced any money.
“There will be some preliminary conversations late in the week and I would think Barry Moat will have some provisional discussions with them although I can’t underline provisional enough.
“Until someone comes up with the money Mike Ashley has got to stay in control of the club. He has got no choice.” (more…)
