TalkSPORT are the latest ones to jump to the defence of Mike Ashley, releasing one of the most pathetic and biased polls you’re likely to see after the NUFC owner’s latest move to spend £90m on House of Fraser.
Before we get into it, here’s the poll – an unfair and leading question from a chat show that claims to be unbiased..
What should Mike #Ashley have done with his £90m? #nufc @houseoffraser
— talkSPORTDrive (@talkSPORTDrive) August 13, 2018
Adrian Durham is at it again folks – and it’s not really on.
If it’s Mike’s own money and he can do with that as he pleases, but the point has been woefully missed here in an attempt to defend Ashley, mislead your average football fan and make us NUFC fans look quite stupid once again. We don’t expect to see Ashley’s own money invested (those days are long gone) but we do expect him to spend the money the CLUB generates.
The poll is CLEARLY angled in a way that defends Mike Ashley’s purchase of House of Fraser, whilst completely belittling our argument as fans in the process, woefully missing the point regarding our frustrations about the lack of spending at NUFC this summer.
We’re not asking him to go into his own pocket and spend £90m on new players (we don’t expect that from an owner that ‘wants out’), but it is completely reasonable to expect him to spend the money the CLUB generates – just as he promised back in May and has since failed to deliver.
We gained £123m as a club over the 2017/18 season, the first instalment of TV payments will have handed us an extra £40m back in July and our player sales this summer have totalled in excess of £40m also. All that and a net spend of MINUS £20M.
Here are some of the responses to the poll on Twitter:
“This is perhaps the most outrageously-loaded question I’ve ever seen. Our issue isn’t what Mike Ashley does with his PRIVATE funds of £90m – that’s HIS business. OUR ISSUE is what he does with the money the CLUB GENERATES/TV money. Do your research.”
‘Question for you talkSPORT – What shouldn’t Mike
#Ashley have done in the last few years running#NUFC and@SportsDirectUK: 1) Ostracize a player with cancer: or 2) Have thousands of employees on zero hour contracts, fearful of taking sick leave. Simple question.’‘His business interests are separate and funded from separate areas of his holding companies. The money made from NUFC should be reinvested in that. As he promised. The money from other business affairs is invested elsewhere. Your poll is as dumbed down as we have come to expect’
‘The money spent on house of Fraser was never money that could have been spent on players. House of Fraser was bought by Sports Direct.
#NUFC is part of MASH holdings. Seperate accounts, seperate entities entirely. The question is loaded and pointless.’‘The two have absolutely no correlation, to even put this out as a vote shows your complete lack of knowledge and ignorance. We aren’t asking him to spend HIS £90m, we’re asking him to spend money OUR CLUB has inherited through sales of OUR assets and through OUR performance’
‘Totally unfair and loaded question.’
“This tweet demonstrates complete ignorance and missing the point. Newcastle fans are not asking him to invest more money, simply asking him to spend the money the club itself is generating.”
Dennis Wise, Richard Keys and now another name to add to the list of those in the media who’ll do anything in their power to defend Mike Ashley.
Pathetic.
Durham’s job is to instigate trouble in order to get people to phone in or text etc. He’s a classic and professional WUM. It’s what he does. The more outrageous the suggestion the more people respond.
Doesn’t work much does it? ? Ignore him. I do every day.
Bobbybee(Quote)
Very true. I’ve fallen into the trap – I just think it’s unacceptable.
How we can be the ones portrayed as the bad guys in all of this is taking it too far..
Olly Hawkins(Quote)
SD’s £90 million, not his. SD is a PLC, though he continues to operate like it’s his own personal business.
Someone needs to take these shy@e talking idiots to task. How do they get a job when they have no clue what they are talking about?
sickandtired(Quote)
Newcastle fans need to get back in their box in my opinion. We appear ‘stupid’ because it is exactly that. TalkSport make a fair comparison and our fans keep forgetting Ashley is a business man. People going down Ameobi’s throat for fair comment, the club is financially stable. The best yet is that on an annual basis people expect age old transfer policy to vanish and to see £40 million footballers walk through the door. Reality check lads and lasses, this is how it is, get behind YOUR club and enjoy club stability and premiership football.
Dan(Quote)
What a bunch of utter **** & uneducated drovel assley has taken the **** for 2 long, you say its ok, yeah what if it was your club. Were not on about his 90m were on about the clubs generated money you fools
23m spent 43m sales , 123m in prize & tv, players in rubbish (2 exceptions ) our great club bargain shopping again, its not good enough lets riot get rid of the git rebuild later R.I.P NUFC
David Smith(Quote)
Oh dear. Talksport really touched a nerve there.
Sadly shows how little the fans know about business
Briaaaan(Quote)
Just think how many jobs he could save if he sells nufc and uses that money to save other jobs. #ashleytotherescue. How naive if anyone thinks it’s anything but to line his own greedy pockets. Why isn’t sky having follow up interview with him to ask about his last year’s lying interview.
Brian(Quote)
You make some reasonable points about the manager being able to spend the profits from the club’s revenue, as long as he doesn’t buy too many players on high wages that would be unsustainable.
However, you make almost the same mistake that the poll is intended to highlight. You say:
“Mike’s own money and he can do with that as he pleases”
“…defends Mike Ashley’s purchase of House of Fraser…”
“We’re not asking him to go into his own pocket and spend £90m on new players …”
Sports Direct has bought House of Fraser, and used it’s own money, or probably money loaned to it by a financial institution. Mike Ashley hasn’t bought it, nor used his own money out of his pocket. The fact that you can’t tell the difference between Ashley the person, and Sports Direct the company, is the fundamental issue. Because many fans cannot tell the difference between Ashley the person, MASH, St James Holdings and Newcastle United. They believe that all money the club has is Ashley’s money and all money Ashley has is the club’s money, that Ashley and the club are one and the same. And when they compound that with the misunderstanding that Ashley=Sports Direct=Ashley, then they think it was a straight choice between spending money on House of Fraser or buying more players.
The poll does highlight ignorance, and you are wrong to dismiss that. But it’s not just confined to our fans. I’m sure Lineker said on MOTD following Shearer making the (good) points you make about the club not spending much money, and making a profit from selling Mitro, that “now we know where the money has gone”. And this seems a widely held view that the Sky TV money paid to the club has gone straight into Ashley’s pocket, and he has then used it to buy HoF.
Even if that was the case (it’s not), the poll is then highlighting that there are fans that are so selfish that they think a new left back for NUFC in case of injury to Dummett is more important than saving the jobs of most of HoF’s employees. Given the choice that they believe Ashley has, between backing the manager or investing in HoF, they think the manager should come first. They simply can’t conceive that no such choice exists, and the purchase of HoF was entirely coincidental with the transfer deadline, with one not depending on the other. The administrators set the day when they would announce which bid for HoF was successful, and that had nothing to do with the date set by the Premier League for transfers to be completed.
And you (perhaps inadvertantly) reinforce this idea by claiming that Ashley has a pocket containing £90m and can spend it how he wants. When, in fact, Sports Direct paid the administrator of HoF £90m, and Sports Direct now owns the shops and employs the workers there. Not Ashley.
potski(Quote)