Newcastle United

Newcastle United: John Gibson says the Premier League is terrified to speak on the takeover

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Image for Newcastle United: John Gibson says the Premier League is terrified to speak on the takeover

Speaking recently on the NUFC Matters YouTube show, John Gibson claimed that the Premier League is terrified to comment on Newcastle United’s failed takeover bid due to fear of legal action.

It was reported back in April that the proposed £300 million Saudi Arabia-backed takeover of Newcastle United was nearing completion, and that no unexpected hitches were predicted with the deal, which was estimated to only take another ‘week to 10 days’ to be finalised.

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To get things started a rather easy one. Who scored Newcastle's first league goal of the season?

However, after a further three months of the deal sitting with the Premier League with no movement, the buyers eventually pulled out of the bid, blaming the Premier League for the length of the process as the reason for doing so.

As yet, there has still been no comment on the part of the Premier League as to why it took so long to assess the takeover deal, something which reporter John Gibson, speaking on the NUFC Matters YouTube show, believes is because of a fear of legal action.

He said: “They think silence is golden. That is their rule, not our rule, that silence is golden – it is anything but. But they are, I’m told, absolutely terrified about talking about this situation, because they think the moment they open their mouths, they’re laying themselves open to being sued.

“Because on one side, you’ve got [Mike] Ashley having his lawyers hovering around, waiting to say ‘oh, that’s why you stopped me getting my £300 million, we’re going to do you.’ And on the other side, you’ve got Qatar’s lawyers hovering around saying ‘so you’re not really looking after us on the piracy thing? We will sue.’

“So they were hoping that if the consortium went away, the problem would go away. The problem hasn’t gone away, because the consortium have handled it so well.”

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TIF Thoughts…

As per Gibson’s comments, it would appear that he is of the belief that the Premier League hasn’t made any kind of statement on the failed takeover of Newcastle United for fear of being sued, which, considering it has been over two weeks since the bid was withdrawn, could go a long way to explaining the Premier League’s silence to this point.

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Football Writer for Snack Media