According to Bein Sports’ Ben Jacobs, Bin Zayed Group sources say that they don’t expect any takeover to go through before Rafa Benitez’s contract expires on June 30th.
As a result, it would then be up to Mike Ashley to persuade Rafa Benitez to sign a new deal at the club.
As Jacobs states below, the potential lure of new ownership could tempt Benitez to commit to a new deal, but this could be an extremely messy situation and a difficult decision made even tougher for Rafa – especially if a takeover is not imminent.
So, on Sunday night this deal was described as ‘done’ by the likes of the Sun and the Mail, yet now we’re being told that it’ll take another month at least.
It seems they want Benitez to stay should they take over, but it also appears that their ‘priority’ is to secure the club – not ‘decide on a manager’.
These things do take time, with proof of funds still needed, contracts needing to be exchanged and the Premier League needing to be contacted to carry out a fully fit and proper person test, but a penny for Rafa Benitez’s thoughts in all of this. It’s also worrying to think that this could drag another month, taking up several valuable weeks of the transfer window.
You’d expect him to sign if a takeover was all but done and imminent, however it’s hard to see how he can commit when he doesn’t know who will be in charge of the club in a few months time.
Who feed the media the done deal stories? Know one knew anything about Man City being bought until it was done Mansour even lend the owners an advance to cover transfers until all the i’s and t’s were crossed in the summer of 2008 so they would be behind in preparations. This whole fiasco just stinks of Mike Ashley and Keith Bishop’s making. The sheikh prob just got in touch to ask the price and Ashley ran to the media with it trying to force his hand. That press release yesterday looks very staged now doesn’t it? Ashley went on Sky News in December 2018 to say the club would be sold within a month to stop a mass boycott on super sunday only for no sale to happen, Tell me he wouldn’t invent all this to force Rafa into signing a new deal? NUFC play the PL tournament in early July and they may not have a manager and half the squad will have a foot out the door by then, talk about a mess.
Nufc 11(Quote)
Ashley, just die you fat *******
Ash Hater(Quote)
The fact these kind of time lines are being mentioned leads me to think that Mike Ashley himself is behind all this guff we are hearing !
Every time his back is against the wall he pulls this stroke concerning the sale of the club to get him through sticky situations.
Joe Hawkins(Quote)
Not selling not buying any players same bull **** prepare for the real wrath of the toon this time you fat *******
Larry toon hants(Quote)