St James’ Park again, thanks to a lot of Wonga!

toonsy

St James’ Park once more
And so it turns out to be true after all, although only partially in comparison to what was being reported a few days back.

Newcastle United and “digital finance” company Wonga have agreed a four-year deal which will make the payday lender the lead commercial sponsor of the club.

That part is being reported on the official club website, but the part that isn’t may be of the most interest to you. According to the yellow “breaking news” bar on Sky Sports News and Lee Ryder on Twitter, it appears that Wonga have also agreed to buy the stadium naming rights and have chosen to officially rename the ground…. St James’ Park.

In addition to this it has also become apparent that Wonga will invest money into our youth academy and also into the Newcastle United Foundation Enterprise Scheme which gives youngsters aged 15-16 the skills to find employment through course and initiatives ran by United.

It certainly appears that Wonga are keen to get the fans on side and they haven’t done a bad job of that to start with. Of course to us fans it’s always been St James’ Park, but to now have it back officially and remove any possibility of it being called the Sports Direct Arena again is fantastic. The other initiatives stated by Wonga include setting up a fans forum for discussing ideas of fan involvement in the club, and also getting fans involved in the design of the shirts.

However it isn’t all sweetness and light as far as I’m concerned. I’m not overly happy that we now carry the name of a company that basically extorts people with eye watering interest rates. Granted Richard Branson is no different, but at least he doesn’t charge over 4,000% or whatever it is Wonga charge. Mind you, St Branson has been nudging the interest rate on my Virgin credit card up and up and up for the last couple of years…

On the other hand, Wonga are just offering a service. An extremely expensive service all the same, but all charges and other associated stuff such as interest rates are demonstrated BEFORE anything is agreed. Is it their fault that people then still choose to use their service?

This whole thing has been played very smartly, from both the club and Wonga. Right now they appear to be the shining knights in all of this whilst also paying for a stadium that was pretty much always referred to as St James’ Park anyway. The devil is in the detail however and I’d be interested to see how much the club are receiving for this. Rumours suggest the deal is worth £8m a season but we’ll see I guess.

What do you make of it all?

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

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262 thoughts on “St James’ Park again, thanks to a lot of Wonga!”

  1. DAVE bring back oliver i say,i know he was a ***** but he wasnt a boring git,i see him about once a week in the village and still laugh to myself,hes got no time for jabba and company which is a bonus 😀 😀 😀

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  3. Balanced comment from a mackem? 😯 😯
    “They have a well dodgy company sponsoring them. So what?
    We are sponsored by a very dodgy ‘charity’ that is a front for an oil company that has ignored human rights in Africa. Our kits are made and sold for exorbitant prices by a company who supported the Nazis. Our club is owned by an American venture capitalist with no emotional attachment to the club. Our club is trying to take legal action against local pubs who display Sunderland flags in the windows. Our season ticket prices are going up more quickly than practically anyone else’s, and in recent years we have gone from one of the cheapest to mid-table in prices. And, like every other club, we are bankrolled by a company whose employees hacked into the mobile telephones of dead schoolchildren.
    Before the ‘**** off Mag’ responses start, we are just like every single Premiership club in all of that. But modern football is a disgrace, not just the skunks”

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  5. RICHIE that cannot be a real scum fan,they cannot read never mind write,the world is full of thiefs and scum-bags mate,but enjoyed the read like 😆 😆 😆

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  6. Ice….he’s from your village, maybe some of your superior educational qualities have rubbed off? 😉 😆

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  9. 😀 😀 😀 aye normally see him when ime putting the lotto on think he writes for the people newspaper now hes told me little bits and bobs about jabba and company,he said he reads the toon blogs just to gauge the feeling of fans so ime saying nowt 😆 😆 think hes still banned from sjp 😀

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  12. AMF aye back on,wor lass is in malta seeing the son so i can get on laptop,cost me a bit of wonga to send her 😆 😆 😆

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  17. Ice, good man, glad to see you are back in charge 😆 😆

    Rich, I think you will find you are behind the times mate 😉

    Big Dave, Dekka said to say hi when I spoke to him earlier on. I told him you were his biggest fan 😎 😉

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  18. “Erm, why would they object to wearing Wonga shirts……what do Virgin Money do again?”

    Spot on, Honestly when i read that this morning i thought they were referring to muslims being against turfing people out of their homes or something like that. Tiote, Ben Arfa and Ba signed for us we were sponsored by northern rock and then Cisse joined when we were sponsored by virgin money. Southern **** stains attempting to **** stir… 🙄 🙄

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  19. i heard jabba is getting a 30day loan from wonga to get a c/b in jan he just hoping pardew can meet the monthly payments 😀

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  20. CC…I read an article saying Muslims weren’t allowed to benefit from recieving money from another person…..guess that means all Muslim businesses sell all their goods at cost price then 🙄

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  21. Ice, you could be right but surely with the Wonga loan it won’t end up costing us as much as what xisco has 😆

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  22. rich

    Aye thats why they joined us fat mick pays them in donnay trainer socks so he doesnt break sharia law… 😉

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  24. Has it been confirmed how much the deal is worth? I read 24mil for 4 seasons which works out at £6 million a season , but that seems very low to me for shirt and staduim name.

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  25. RICHIE there are some down sides in being a muslim,they take more than one wife,who in there right mind would want more than one for ffs 😯 😯

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  26. JT ate it seems suss to me,and owlheed saying its the biggest deal ever done at the toon,theres a rabbit off somewhere mate imo 👿

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  28. I bet Dekka will charge an almighty amount of interest if Wonga are late with their sponsership payments 🙂 🙂

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  29. Ice… 😆
    Johno..who knows, will probs have to wait ’til the accounts and know nowt about owt like that but it may not show until 2013/14’s 😯
    If the report that said Virgins was £3m then 6m looks better(still not great) and I don’t know if that £24m includes the money for the Academy etc which is at least £1.5m p.a(I think)

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  30. Wonga’s money I not half as much as what Liverpool have invested in our club 🙂

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  33. @153 Richie
    Unfortunately that’s why we can’t really, as a club, use morales to make commercial decisions, noone else in the league does. Sucks but it’s the way.
    I still don’t believe alcohol/gambling companies are worse though, the % of people that use either of the three and are f**ked over by doing so is massively higher with wonga.
    The Mackems sponsors are worse though, and there’s a few others as well.

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  35. Yeah I know what u mean Ice , like them or hate them Ashely and Llambias drive a hard bargin and the reported 24mil doesnt add up to me. I think its more. I could be wrong!
    Yeah Richie , a lot of different add ons so who know what it will end up at. 2013/14 is a long time to wait , even for us patient fans!

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  36. Commercially it doesn’t look fantastic tbh. Really like the youth development investment idea.
    But I thought naming rights was supposed to provide 10M a year alone?
    So either:
    A) We’re losing money as we aren’t getting the 10M a year from Sports Direct
    B) As many on here (myself not included) claimed, Sports Direct were using it for free and not reducing the debt owed to Ashley by 10M a year or providing 10M to the club or whatever.

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  37. ST…it’s not just football unfortunately though, it’s life in general 🙁

    Aussie…you must be skint then 😉 😆 ….Mad Max was on Spanish tv last night, **** acting, **** script, more outdated than Ice’s wardrobe…..but **** me still a classic and a must see :mrgreen:

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  39. ST….I don’t think £10m a year just for Stadium naming was ever realistic, you usually get more for the shirt sponsorship and we can’t even get £10m for that it seems. Arsenal only got £6.5m ish for both…although that was obviously a few years back, but they are a bigger name than us.

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  41. RICHIE ill have you know ive just bought a new pair of speedos and body-warmer from the red-cross shop,reet up to date me 😀 😀 mind there getting dear there too robbing gits

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  43. Ice how could you do that to me, I thought we were mates……

    Arsenal has 7 letters in their name and Newcastle has 9 so technically they do not have a bigger name than us 🙂

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  46. I might be wrong here but didnt Virgin just take over Northern Rocks sponsorship which had 2 yrs left of a 4yr deal worth £10m? That obviously gave us £2.5m a year and Virgin wrote in an agreement to canx a year early, which is obviously what we have done.
    If that is the case, £6m per year is pretty good business I think. They have brought back SJP but I’m sure it will be caked in Wonga signs.
    I’m afraid that trying to use the fact we have Muslim players is simply clutching at straws, and puts perfectly innocent players like Ba, Cisse, Tiote and Benny in a very unfair position.

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  48. At first glance I would have hoped for more money, but I haven’t really seen any specific details of what exactly the “around 8mil” figure includes. If it literally is just 8mil for everything that is pretty poor, but then again, no company was going to pay 10mil a year just to turn SJP back to SJP soo….I’m just happy to have the name back officially, money or not.

    Wonga attempting to help our local businesses should be interesting too-if they actually do it. They’re clearly a successful company and clubs (not owned by sugar daddies) need to find new revenue streams. Arsenal’s property business makes millions for them each year, something we would no doubt like to emulate….

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  49. NEWKIE@197,surely you knew that a long time ago,by the way there saying the deal is 32mil,will we ever get the truth out of that lot 😡

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  52. Ice-Yeah, but I usually manage to avoid reading/hearing his views but I decided I’d listen to that talksport interview. Never again! 😆

    Ice-I guess its 32 as its supposed to be a four year deal. Not sure though, and no we’ll never get the truth from them anyway 😀

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  53. Why would a reputable company like Wonga want to deal with renowned liars like Dekka and Ashley. Surely it will cast their business in a bad light 🙂 🙂

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  55. Newkie on our debate last night
    Aye I don’t think many of them will/would make a fuss, I was just pointing out that we have a fair few Muslims in our ranks.

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  56. Ice@146 😆

    Richie@147 .That interview was cringeworthy ,what a twit he is. Is it me or does he sound drunk half the time 😕 He can barely string a sentence together and can’t form an argument to save his life.

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  57. I don’t think our Muslim players will be that bothered tbh ,the only one I can see maybe would have a problem might be Cisse since he sends cash back home to help out his poorer relations and is funding vital medical equipment too. He’s quite an alturistic person and might find a company doing well on the back of poverty uncomfortable, but who knows. You never know, the player/players who have the most problem with it might not even have a faith . 😉

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  58. Kim,your post is a revaluation, I can see now that Richie is half drunk when he is on here. 🙂 🙂

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  59. Kim-I think Tiote does the same, sending money back for his 7 bros and sisters. I still can’t see any of them having a problem. Like you said some might just be upset over moral grounds.

    But in all honesty,I really don’t think any of them care 😆

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  60. Newkie ,Aye most likely right.

    Aussie ,I thought pick on Richie was on mondays 😉

    Crappy day ,broke down in a retail park , faulty battery 👿 but upside was a dishy AA man 😎

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  61. If they have a problem they shouldn’t get paid simple as, virgin charges interest and makes money off people as does Barclays who sponsor the premier league, as does every muslim business, its all absolute bollox. I haven’t heard of players not wearing shirts ‘cos they’re sponsored by brewries.

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  62. Aussie….I don’t do owt by halves :mrgreen:

    Kim…Mondays are my day off 😀

    Anybody who refuses to do owt “morally” because of religion are barking up the wrong tree anyway…..religions have taken advantage of the poor and misguided more than any private company could ever do…imo of course 😉

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  63. Richie ,It’ll just be the southern press stirring up a storm as always with all things to do with Toon. 🙄

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  67. Bit random but ive just realised twattermoles out of the derby, Leaves them a bit lightweight in the middle… 😯

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  68. RICHIE think your wrong about a player not wearing a shirt ime sure kanute would not wear his shirt because of 888 gambling mob a while back in pl 😉

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  69. Ice…I know he did, I didn’t say a player wouldn’t do it but any player who plays in the “Barclays” Premier league or wore a Virgin Money or NR shirt can’t now turn around and say they don’t agree with companies that charge people interest 😉

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  71. CC-Aye, but it also means they’ll likely finish the game with 11 men 😆

    Although, he seems to get away with a sending off every fecking derby anyway even when he tears through the back of people in the opening thirty seconds 👿

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  73. Ice… nowt picky about correcting you on something I didn’t say 😉 , plus Kanoute’s hypocritical stance wasn’t for every match, he wore 888.com on his chest plenty of times 😉

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  74. And, not that I am 100% on this of course, but I think its pretty likely many of these Muslim footballers also use banks in the UK who pay them interest on their investment?…

    Profiting for doing nowt. Allah strike them down!

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