TalkSport pundit Simon Jordan has given his view on Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley following the club’s latest attempts to force through a takeover.
It’s been well over a year now since the Newcastle United takeover by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund was called off, with reports suggesting that it was over frustration with how long the deal was taking.
The club are currently in the process of taking their case through the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in an effort to try and “push through the potential buyout” whilst also “being used as a tool to secure compensation from the Premier League due to the stalled nature of the process to date”.
However, speaking about the appeal process on TalkSport, Jordan feels that there might be other reasons behind the Newcastle owner’s decision to pursue arbitration through the courts:
“I think Mike’s probably thrown a few million quid at arbitration because it makes him look good and deflects away from what he’s not doing, which is spending money on a football team.
“Unfortunately, a casualty of that are Newcastle fans that have an ambition to see their football club escalated back to where it once was, or close to being, in 1996.”
TIF Thoughts on Simon Jordan’s comments about Mike Ashley at Newcastle United…
Are you confident on the takeover happening?
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You can certainly see where Jordan is coming from in his logic, because it’s fair to say that Ashley’s relationship with the supporters has not been the greatest over the years, in large part due to him and some of the decisions that he has made.
And if he can do something like this to make it look as if he’s trying to make the deal go through and sell the club, then what he has to spend in terms of fees to take the case to court is effectively buying himself PR points with the supporters by trying to push the blame to one side and force it on the Premier League, with the supporters holding a protest against the league during their recent game with Leeds United.
Whether or not it proves effective – especially if they don’t spend in the January transfer window, as Jordan hints at – we’ll just have to wait and see. But for the time being at least, he may not be public enemy number one in the eyes of the Newcastle United fans, with that role instead occupied by the Premier League.
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