Newsletter

Get your daily update and weekly newsletter by signing up today!

Opinion

The first rule of Newcastle takeover reporting is…

6 years ago
Share

To paraphrase a certain film: ‘The first rule of Newcastle takeover reporting is…there are no rules’.

I’m almost looking forward to the next transfer window if it rescues us from the desperate rubbish that is being peddled by all the newspapers.

I didn’t realise that they made barrels that were quite so deep.

If you are now used to getting your news online then it is even worse for you.

Update after update is posted with often nothing different to report, one local north east newspaper especially guilty of this, though I won’t name and shame them here – no doubt you will already know who I am referring to if you read NUFC stuff online (as a ‘small’ clue, their shocking attitude to the use of intrusive adverts and automatic videos loading makes their site all but unusable anyway!).

The same as the transfer stories that circulate, anything of substance is very hard to find.

Pretty much every ‘new’ Newcastle takeover story starts with one of the newspapers having an ‘exclusive’, which seems to consist of choosing somebody very rich from another country, who already has some kind of track record of buying/investing in football (and/or other sports).

Exactly how they have found out an exclusive inside track about what some Indonesian, Algerian, Outer Mongolian, businessman is doing/thinking, gets a bit lost in translation.

This ‘exclusive’ then gets copied by every single other newspaper/media organisation (regularly not even acknowledging somebody else wrote/made up the original), often getting more and more altered/added to, until it becomes a better and better story….

If no individual can be dreamed up, the next best thing is simply to put a nationality (Chinese, American etc) before the word ‘Consortium’.

Then that is also repeated/added to by the rest of the papers.

Obviously it was a story on Monday when the actual announcement was made by Mike Ashley.

The same when he put one of his stooges straight up afterwards on Sky Sports, a solicitor who Ashley allegedly has working on the sale of NUFC.

The rest though just seems to be pure speculation.

Either coming up with imaginary new potential buyers, or backtracking to ones who have previously been mentioned, even the really stupid nonsense such as the wrestling bloke.

Mike Ashley claims any deal will need to be sorted before the new year…the idea of another two and a half months of this feverish click grabbing speculation garbage is not an enticing prospect.

Just over 10 years ago Mike Ashley did his deal for Newcastle United without anybody in the media having the remotest idea it was happening, if he really is going to leave, I am pretty confident it will be the same scenario.

Fat Mike live on Sky Sports, handing the keys to St James Park over to a buyer we’ve never even heard of previously.

You heard it here first in this exclusive…
[get_involved]

Share

If you would like to feature on The Mag, submit your article to contribute@themag.co.uk

Have your say

© 2024 The Mag. All Rights Reserved. Design & Build by Mediaworks