New quotes have emerged tonight from Amanda Staveley, with the Dubai-based businesswoman bidding to buy Newcastle United speaking exclusively to Sky Sports.
She insists that her company PCP Capital partners, the Reuben brothers and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are determined to push through a takeover, reveals her sympathy for Mike Ashley ’15 months’ on from agreeing a deal and has doubled down on her mission to have the arbitration hearing play out in public.
Here’s what she’s told Sky Sports News on Monday night:
“I am tenacious if nothing else.
“We believe this is very important for Newcastle and the fans and we’re not going to give up.
“We don’t ever give up.”
“I can absolutely sympathise with Mike’s position.
“He’s worked tirelessly to try and sell the club, he made a very public statement, I remember two years ago seeing him on Sky thinking ‘okay, there’s a real chance for us to buy Newcastle’.
“He said ‘I will sell the club, I need to have a buyer with deep pockets, it’s not really about the cash in my pockets, it’s about who will put the cash in Newcastle’s pockets’.
“So he’s done exactly what the fans urged him to do, but he can’t get there.
“I feel disappointed because I also said to him when we struck a legal deal in April last year, and here we are some 15 months later and we’re still not there.
“I understand his position.”
After her letter to MP Tracey Crouch was made public just yesterday, she then went on to tell Sky Sports that she’s now contacted Sports Minister Oliver Dowden earlier today over making the arbitration hearing against the Premier League go public:
“I wrote a letter urging the government and football regulators to make sure that the issues around sporting governance and arbitration around sport be held in public,”
“We think that this is very important for fans, and particularly important for all those stakeholders in sport. Transparency is at the heart of our request, so transparency in sport is really what we’re trying to seek.
“I contacted both Oliver Dowden and Nigel Huddlestone, I sent a letter to them earlier this afternoon [Monday], we haven’t received a response but Tracey responded to us very quickly.
“We asked Mr Dowden to take the same issues I raised in the letter with Tracey to the government’s heart and we want to urge the government to add their voice to our request to the Premier League to have these processes maybe in public.
“We know nothing about the arbitration, we can’t be part of the arbitration and we don’t know what’s going on. By having it in a public forum we have a chance to understand what’s going on and how we deal with that.
“I don’t understand why there is an issue about transparency around all major businesses.
“I have to first of all say that I am a huge fan of the Premier League and naturally I am trying to become a part of that institution.
“We should be very proud of the Premier League, but with an institution which is as important to Britain and the UK, transparency around the decision that regulators make is important.
“We will never be able to see what goes on behind the scenes unless journalists and particularly the fans are able to really examine the materials held in these forums.”
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Please let this go through. Fair play to them all including fcb they are having a go,
Unfortunately the Premier League is still holding the whip hand, and masters is still doing as he’s told,.
Cc(Quote)
Masters and the rest of the corrupt puppets are all in the pockets of the 6 who hate any competition they want to end football in England. Corruption and the premier league go hand in hand
phil renner(Quote)
The fact AS has spoken out like this has gone some way to convince me that a takeover is still possible & all of this isn’t just some plot by Ashley to get a compo pay out.
I don’t know that PL will u-turn at all, but this has restored a little hope at the very least.
Sharpy17(Quote)
My god Amanda Staveley is exactly wot nufc need someone who is prepared to fight for this great football club.
Stephen(Quote)
“I am tenacious if nothing else.”
She is.
Unfortunately she’s not professional, and didn’t do her due diligence. TWICE.
The first time she brought us a buyer who, once a price was agreed, didn’t have the cash, and the second time she already seemed to know that her buyer’s credentials were dodgy so brought in the Reubens brothers, and chipped in herself, to try to add some respectability.
She didn’t do that with the Bin Zayed group, and if any prospective owner DID NOT need financial help it was MBS.
Man City aside Staveley’s history appears to be a string of disasters one after another. I’m guessing hubby is the brains of the organisation.
Freddd(Quote)
With Qatar still pulling Masters strings, who he’ll be waiting on instructions for the next move, they’ll write to every PL club again to oppose the takeover, through Barclays Bank, of which they hold 12.7% shares
Jaffa(Quote)