Mark Douglas has been speaking on the latest edition of the Everything is Black and White podcast about all things relating to Newcastle United.
One of the topics which he spent some time on was the takeover bid by the Bellagraph Nova Group that has gone nowhere since their first bid.
The news of the bid from BNG emerged in August, along with claims that Michael Chopra and Alan Shearer would be involved.
It turned out Shearer wasn’t involved, but Chopra was, and the group made a bid of £280m, which was below Mike Ashley’s asking price.
Despite a claim from one of their members in October, they were still in talks; nothing has happened, and it is fair to say that Douglas was not impressed by this attempt to buy the Toon.
He said: “They never had the money in the first place to come in and buy Newcastle United.
“They deliberately, in my opinion, went in very low.
“It got them a load of publicity, but as it’s turned out, publicity that hasn’t worked particularly well for them, because they have uncovered a whole load of controversy.
“Just a mess from start to finish.”
Did you ever think this bid was real?
No, it was just nonsense
Yes, I thought it might happen
TIF Thoughts on BNG and Douglas’ view on them…
It is hard to argue with Douglas that this was a mess because the group’s bid never even got approved by Ashley’s legal team for him to look at himself.
The controversy that he mentioned could be in relation to an article by Reuters, which unveiled some big problems for BNG around photoshopping images of Barack Obama, which just makes them look unprofessional in our view.
It is strange that the group claimed they were still in talks but didn’t raise their offer and the way Chopra acted (as can be seen with a quick look through his timeline) was also bizarre.
So, we agree that this was a strange attempt to buy the Toon and we think it should be forgotten about.